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POEMS AND STORIES 
IN VERSE 



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By MARY E. BRYAN 



^^.•i OF ca^J>> 
IAN 16 189- ) / 



ATLANTA, GA. 

Chas. p. Byrd, Publisher 

1895 



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?c. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the office of the 

LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS 

Washington, D. C, September, 1895. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

A Word to My Readers 3 

Madeleine — A Mystery . , 5 

Out of the Depths 9 

Keyrie — the Soul-less 10 

The Imprisoned " Moonshiner " 12 

Her Burden 13 

He and She 15 

The Midnight Tryst 19 

The Cherry Rogues 21 

His Society Play 24 

A Filibuster 30 

Moro — A Dumb Savior 33 

Anacreon 39 

" Beautiful Flower " .- 41 

Too Late 43 

High and Low 44 

My Love and My Lady 48 

The Bridge of Asphodels 49 

The Last Pledge 50 

Flight Southward 53 

A Rose in my Neighbor's Garden 54 

Night Before the Execution 55 

The Woman Doctor 59 

The Avening Ghost 61 

Winter Rain 64 



CONTENTS. 

PAGK 

Myrrha, the Greek Bride 65 

Forever 71 

The Undying One 73 

Lillian's Pigeons 75 

In Another Star 76 

Child Musicians 78 

On the Ruined Tower 79 

The Long Leaf Pine 80 

Blessing 82 

Henry W. Grady 83 

The Fisherman's Daughters 84 

Lost in the Clouds 88 

Love's Wish 91 

A Night Watch 92 

The Golden Rod 94 

The Hour When We Shall Meet 95 

Her Answer 98 

Love Me Little, Love Me Long 100 

In the Street 102 

White Hyacinths 103 

Stirring Ashes 105 

Bread and Oil 106 

Our Country's Need 108 

My Birth Night Ill 

If 112 

Isabel 113 

Aranth 115 

A Dark Hour 117 

A Graveyard Rabbit 117 



A WORD TO MY READERS. 



The poems in this little volume were written in the 
scant leisure hours, scattered throug-h busy years of 
pen-work in more prosaic lines. Only one of them 
was ever offered to a publisher; those that have been in 
print appeared in the periodicals I was editing at the 
time when they were written. Writing them was to 
me a recreation and a pleasure. They were spontan- 
eous, springing from the feeling, thought or fancy of 
the hour. Some of them are sombre; but life has more 
shadow than sunshine, and it is in shadowed ways that 
we gather the deepest lessons of life, as more fragrant 
dew is found in the heart of flowers that bloom in the 
shade. 

Some of the poems have been widely copied ; and 
some of the stories in verse seem to have been prized 
as recitations. Such as they are, 1 offer these collected 
bits of verse to my friends, who have so often called 
for them with words of kindly praise, and to the pub- 
lic, who may not be so generous in their estimate, say- 
ing once more, that they are but as wild flowers, sown 
by the winds of fancy and feeling, between the furrows 
of more prosaic work in the field of daily duty. 

Mary E. Bryan. 



Poems and Stories in Verse 



MADELEINE— A MYSTERY. 

Do you remember 
A lovely, mysterious woman you knew, 
In a land where the palm and the orange grew— 
A woman with eyes of fire and dew, 
With a star-white face. 
And a mystical grace, 
With slumbrous poppies upon her breast, 
That yet would heave in a strange unrest- 
Do you remember? 
Like sunset's ember 
Shone her crown of wonderful golden hair . 
Ah! men had loved her, to their despair, 
This strange, sweet woman, Madeleine Weir. 

Do you remember 
The night you last saw Madeleine's home, 
Where the waters of Mad River swirled in foam, 
The old gray house, and the cotton- wood tree. 
And the pine that sung of the sobbing sea- 
Do you remember? 
It was sad November. 



MADELEINE— A MYSTERY. 

The sky was pale and the moon was old, 
And the mist was ghostly white on the wold, 

As we ran through the night, 

In horror and fright, 
And Madge, the Indian, with step as light 
And swift as her arrow in its flight. 

Ran on before, 
Crying, "We shall not see her more; 
We shall find her dead inside her door!" 



Dead! How you laughed! 
As though the wine of the gods you'd quaffed; 
When we gained at last the moldering hall 
And saw, high up on its ivied wall, 
Madeleine's eyes at the window tall — 
Madeleine's eyes and Madeleine's face. 
Like a star a-gleam in that lonely place — 

Was the Indian daft? 



For never, oh! never had Madeleine 
Looked more like the stately, the gem-eyed queen 
Of some strange, bright race in a charmed land, 
Than she looked this hour as we saw her stand 
By the window, holding her marble hand 

Over her heart. 

With her lips apart. 
Her bright hair veiling her like a cloud, 
And her strange eyes shining, high and proud. 



MADELEINE— A MYSTERY. 

White as the foam 
Of the river that swirled beneath the dome 
Of her old, her stately, her tottering- home 
Were her g-leaming- neck and her upraised brow. 
Was Madeleine taking some mystic vow? 
How should we know? We never had known 
Whence came she, or wherefore she dwelt alone; 
What strange secret she hid in her breast, 
Never to mortal had she confessed. 

There she stood in the moonlight cold. 
Gazing- out over wood and wold; 
The look in her eyes made our pulses chill. 
Loudly you called her, but, statue-still. 

With her hand on her heart. 

And her lips apart. 
She stood at that weird, wild hour of the night — 
An eerie shape in a robe of white. 

What was she watching for? What would come 
Over the wold in its mist-shroud dumb, 
Or over the forest, dim and still, 
Or over the far-off, shadowy hill — 

What would come? 

Her lips were dumb. 
But a dread lay frozen-fixed in her eyes; 
Would it come in some ghostly, terrible guise? 



MADELEINE— A MYSTERY. 

"When the clock strikes one 
My life shall be done. 
Down by the Mad River make my grave, 
Down where its waters moan and rave." 
Thus she had said to her Indian slave; 
And the woman had sped in mortal fright, 
And summoned us here at dead of night. 
******* 

Clang! at last from the time-piece old. 

The hollow sound through the building rolled, 

And we felt it rock 

With a sudden shock, 
Shiver an instant from dome to base. 
And a ghastly glare lit all the place; 
We saw it gleam upon Madeleine's face. 

Had a lurid star 

Fallen from far, 
And shivered against her window bar? 



It passed in a breath; 

Silent as death 
Was the gloomy room and the moldy wall; 
And she leaned there deaf to your frenzied call; 
For in that instant the Thing had come. 
The Thiag she had watched for, white and dumb; 
Was it some wronged soul from the lost ones' home? 



OUT OF THE DEPTHS. 9 

Yes, it had come, 

And 8he met her doom, 
Proud as the last of some royal line, 
With never a moan and never a sign 
Of what she had suffered, or what she had wrought, 
Or what was the fiend she had silently fought. 
(Was she the criminal some had thought?) 
She passed, perchance, to the peace she sought, 

With her white hand pressed 

On her whiter breast, 
To prison the secret never confessed. 



OUT OF THE DEPTHS. 

Never would we have seen 
This fairy sea-growth— frost-work traced in green— 

Upon this tablet pressed 
Had not a storm, lashing the moaning waves, 
Uprooted it from the cool, hidden caves 

Deep in the ocean's breast. 

Never would we have known 
Full many a poet-thought, fair as this fern — 
Thought quick to stir the sympathies that yearn, 

The hopes that in us dwell 

Like echoes in a shell- 
Had not the thought been torn from the poet's breast 
By storm of grief or sorrow's wild unrest. 



10 KEYRIE— THE SOUL-LESS. 



KEYRIE— THE SOUL-LESS. 

Come to me, Keyrie; the storm is over — 

Storm of passion and vain unrest; 
Flood-tide of feeling- or strong endeavor 

Never shall beat again in my breast, 
Come to me, being, witching and eerie, 

Sprite that bears not the burden of soul; 
Rest me, delight me, shame me, Keyrie, 

Mock at the spectres of Thought and Dole. 

Never has dread of the weird Hereafter, 

Or ruth for the past in your being had part; 
Shiver with your keen, silvery laughter 

Memories that crystallize round my heart. 
Never for you in Life's dim by-way 

Has loomed the wan-eyed ghost. Regret, 
Never, upon its scorching highway 

Has Care, the hollow-cheeked crone, been met. 

Never has crouched in its musky forest, 

Love, the beautiful, cruel beast; 
Never, when spirit-need was sorest, 

Has a creed spread for you a Barmecide feast. 
Deep-mined thought and lore of the ages 

Never have troubled that brown-curled head; 
Little you reck of the science of sages; 

Books are to you dry bones of the^dead. 



KEYRIE— THE SOUL-LESS. 11 

You can whistle the bobolink's lilting measure; 

You can hear the murmur of under-ground streams, 
You know where the hid pool gurgles for pleasure, 

And of what the heron beside it dreams. 
The rhymth of the rain on the young leaves plashing 

The drowsy twitter of birds beneath, 
The coiled storm-cloud and the thunder crashing, 

The rainbow bending its glittering wreath; 

These you know; but the hot out-gushing 

Of tears from the smitten human soul; 
The dull unrest, the regret slow-crushing, 

The yearning after an unseen goal — 
These are spared you, sweet: a soul was forgotten 

When they shaped you — beautiful, butterfly thing. 
Say; on the stalk of a world dry-rotten. 

How came an orchid like you to spring? 

These are the days of stubble and gleaning; 

Our roses of joy have a heart of rue; 
But you, stray off-shoot of primal greening. 

Seem born of an earlier sun and dew — 
A graft of the gay Greek life, my pagan. 

When the woods were alive with the blithe half-gods: 
Nymph and dryad, and faun and dragon — 

And a thrill with the music of Pan's green rods. 



13 THE IMPRISONED "MOONSHINER." 

Come to me, sprite, let your silvery laughter 

Startle my ghosts and bid them flee. 
Laugh till you shake each sensitive rafter 

Of your quivering temple— the poplar tree. 
Come to me, Keyrie, for life is dreary; 

Thought is Care and Love is unrest. 
The soul is a burden — sorrowful, weary; 

Be glad that it never was born in your breast. 



THE IMPRISONED "MOONSHINER." 

The swift rain tramples upon the roof; 

Wild the sound as the rushing hoof 

Of a spectral horse from a ghostly fight; 

It bears my spirit away to-night. 

I hear the wind on my native hills; 

I hear the roar of a hundred rills. 

As they rush in foam down the mountain side. 

Oh! my mountains! the free, the wide! 

Oh! to you on the winds to ride! 

My cabin — 'tis dearer far than a shrine; 

On the mountain side I see it shine, 

Like a star dropped down — the star is mine. 

'Tis the blaze on my hearth of the mountain pine; 

In its light I see my Amy's face, 

And the baby's crib in its corner place. 

And my boy with his sun-burned arm around 



HER BURDEN. 13 

The neck of old Bumper, my trustiest hound. 

Ho! Bumper! ho! Tricks! 'tis a night for the coon. 

Dark — with no glimmer of star or moon; 

The rain is done, or it will be soon; 

With a good pine torch and my trusty gun, 

To-night, old boys, we can have some fun. 

What's that? my God 'tis the rattling chain! 
My home! 'twas the dream of a fevered brain! 
I am back in this stifling cell again! 



HER BURDEN. 

Over her head the sky was drear. 
The wind was bleak, the way was rough. 

She had her heavy heart to bear. 
That seemed enough; 

But one who sits above Earth's shade. 
Yet watches human hopes and harms, 

Sent down a messenger who laid 
A burden in her arms. 

Men shook their heads: "this woman's way," 
They said, ^ 'is won through pain and fear; 

It is not well on her to lay 
Another care." 



14 HER BURDEN. 

But angels smiled in sweet content, 
And said, "'tis well, for He is wise. 

And often are his blessings sent 
In a disguise." 

And lo! the w^oman on whose breast 

The burden had been laid. 
Clasped it and smiled, and by new strength 

Her feet were stayed. 

Shie saw not the dark sky; her eyes 

Were on her burden bent; 
Nor felt the bitter wands, her thoughts 

On this intent. 

She checked her tears lest they might fright 

Its innocent repose. 
And bade a smile bloom on her cheek — 

A flower from snows. 

Men marveled; they saw not so clear 

As eyes bent from above; 
They knew not that 'tis balm to sink 

Self in sweet love. 

That what to them a burden seems 

May be a help most dear; 
For Heaven's dispensary holds no cup 

Of deeper cheer 

Than mother-love to one like her. 
Forsaken, wronged and wild; 
heal her bro 
On it a child. 



HE AND SHE. 15 



HE AND SHE. 

A FLORIDA IDYL. 

Low on the water's heaving breast 
The sun had dropped his golden crest; 
The boat was rocking- on the tide. 
The oars lay in their locks at rest; 
His eyes his tender thoughts confessed; 
Hers dropped— a hovering smile to hide. 

She was his "winter girl"— his best; 
He wrote her sonnets that expressed, 
He said, the ardor of his breast. 
Beauty was hers with sense allied; 
He had good looks— that none denied— 
But for the rest— the chaperons sighed. 

'Ah! look!" (he pointed to the west) 
'At yon green gem on Ocean's breast, 
That fairy island in our lea — 
What a sweet home for you and me! 
There, with these balmy skies above, 
How sweetly we could live and love! 
The palm should shelter us o'erhead. 
The grass should our soft carpet spread. 
There, where the vine her blossom shakes. 
Beside yon loveliest of lakes" — 



16 HE AND SHE. 

"Where chiggers bite." she said, "and snakes!" 

"How blissfully should pass our day," 
He said — his gaze was far awaj' — 

"At morn we'd wander hand in hand 
And gather shells beside the strand; 
When noon-tide came our limbs we'd lave, 
Like sea-gods, in the cooling wave." 

"The hungry 'gators we would brave," 
She added, still demure and grave. 

His gaze was on the rising moon. 
He murmured, "In the afternoon, 
Hid in the woods of endless June, 
We'd listen to the ring-dove's croon. 
On mossy banks we'd take our ease," 

"Nor heed when the mosquetoes tease. 
And swarming sand-flies make us sneeze," 
She sweetly said, as though to please. 

"These purple waves should shut us in," 

More slowly now did he begin. 
"Our cup of life with love empearled, 

We would ask nothing of the world; 

We'd fill the days with fancies fine. 

And worship at sweet Nature's shrine. " 

"Would we not sometimes need to dine?" 
Timid she asked; the flickering smile 
Betrayed her mischief's hidden guile. 



HE AND SHE. 17 

"Your lips should be my cup of wine," 
He said, "The purple-berried vine 
And pau-pau tree our feast should spread." 

She murmured, "We would need some bread." 

"We'd scorn all petty vanities," 
He went on, slightly ill at ease. 

"You would seem lovely in my eyes. 
Dressed always in this simple guise — 
That hat with a bird's wing upon it — " 

She said, "I'd need an Easter bonnet." 

That gown — 'twould stir a poet's passion." 

'Dear me! 'tis nearly out of fashion — 

I'd need one in a later style; 

Could we persuade Madame de Lyle 

To come out to this lovely isle? 

And then my milliner — " He groaned. 
"Ah, sweet Romance is dead," he moaned. 
"Where can I find, on land or sea. 

Some sweet, uncalculating She, 

Content to live for love and me?" 

She said, "You might try in Feejee." 



18 THE MIDNIGHT TRYST. 



THE MIDNIGHT TRYST. 

The winter wood was gray and chill, 

The moon was old, the winds were dead; 
The heart of the wood was weirdly still, 

And she started at her own rustling tread 
As though it were the trail of a shroud; 

And she shuddered as to herself she said: 
''If only the owl would cry aloud, 
Or the leaf would move that lifts on high 
It's dead, black finger against the sky; 
If these snake-like vines that hang and twine 
Would stir or swing in the dim moonshine: 
Then I would not faint with this nameless dread." 
But the wood was still as the breathless dead; 
The leaf did not stir nor the gray owl scream. 

And she had come there, fantasy led— 
To this weird, wild wood — on the faith of a dream, 

When they thought her asleep in her maiden bed. 

Three nights, while she slept on her tear-cold cheek, 

Her long-lost love in a dream had come. 
And said to her low: "The pine will speak 

For me, though the rest of the world is dumb — 
The brave old pine in the heart of the wood. 
By the still, black pool where last we stood; 
At the middle hour of the night go there — 
The pine shall a sign and a message bear." 



THE MIDNIGHT TRYST. 19 

Three days she carried the dream close locked 

In her troubled breast, and gave no sign: 
They would but mock at the dream as they mocked 

In rag-e and pride at her face, that could pine 
And pale for a faithless lover, long gone 
To a land which the sun shines warm upon — 
Gone so long that they could but say, 
"He has forsaken her; foul befall 
The steps of the traitor, wherever they stray!" 

And her bearded brothers, fierce and tall, 
Longed with his blood her wrong to pay. 

And chafed when they saw that a dreary pall, 
Hung for her on the sunniest day; 

And when a curse on his head they would call. 
She would drop her eyes to his ring and pray. 
They would have wrenched the ring away, 
But that her finger grew so small. 
They said, "Of itself it soon must fall." 

She has reached the heart of the winter wood — 
Stiller and deeper the shadows brood; 
She sees the deep pool's glimmering disk, 

Where falls one ray from the waning moon; 
The pine tree stands like an obelisk, 

Still, as if carved of the granite stone; 
In its dark-plumed top there is no stir- 
Never a breath, nor a voice nor a moan- 
It holds no token, no message for her. 



20 THE MIDNIGHT TRYST. 

She waits, she listens — her hands grow numb, 

Close pressed to her heart to hush its beats; 

No sign her straining- senses greets 
On earth or in air — the pine is dumb: 

Yet, as if breathed from a viewless shrine, 
Thrills the wordless whisper, "It will cornel" 

And breathless she stands and awaits the sign. 

What was it? There is no breeze to shake 
The long, light leaf that lifts on high 
Its dead black finger against the sky; 

Yet the pine-boughs suddenly thrill and quake, 
As though a breath of the storm swept by — 

The pine, that had seemed a shaft of stone 

In the stirless wood, it moves alone. 

And now a sound, a sigh, a moan — 
Wind-like, yet human in its tone — 

Fills the slow-swaying boughs o'erhead, 

Lades the air with a spell of dread: 
"Dead!" it syllables; "dead— dead— dead!" 

Nearer it steals like a wave of the seas. 

Her heart is hushed — she sinks to her knees — 

Her eyes are closed — she nothing sees; 

But a touch that is not the touch of the breeze 

Moves through her loosened tresses now — 

Falls like a kiss on her wasted brow — 

And a sense of perfect peace and love 

Bears her up like the wings of a dove. 



THE CHERRY ROGUES- 21 

A moment only, and it is g-one! 
In the silent wood she stands alone; 
The pine does not stir, nor the dead leaf shake, 
And the long- black shadows sleep on the lake; 
A moon-ray falls like an elfin wand 
On the withered lily of her hand — 
Glints on the bright, betrothal band. 
She kissed the ring. "You are mine," she said; 
'I will wear you now till my life is sped! 
He is not false — he is only dead!" 



THE CHERRY ROGUES. 

June skies were arching the green earth with blue, 

The early pear was mellowing and the grape 

Hoarding the suns and dews within its round 

And turning them by wondrous alchemy 

Into ripe lusciousness. Bluff Farmer Gray- 

And his two boys had tramped the orchard through, 

And eyed its fruity promise with a smile 

Until he stood before his cherry trees 

And saw some stems stripped of their crimson 

wealth. 
"The birds, the feathered rogues! A plague on 

them!" 
He cried in wrath. "Look you — you youngsters 

both— 



22 THE CHERRY ROGUES. 

You, Paul and Harry — break up every nest 
You find upon these grounds. You hear me now? 
Smash all the eggs, wring all the pesky necks 
Of these young wretches fed here with my fruit.-" 

It was next day at sunset that I sat 

In the old garden arbor, where a vine 

Of honeysuckle sweetened all the air — 

A wilderness of bloom — in whose sweet depths 

A bird had built. I often heard her stir 

And flutter softly in her fragrant nest, 

And once I peeped and caught her shy bright eye 

As she sat listening to her mate that sang 

All day upon the arbor's highest point — 

A lookout station o'er the treasures hid 

Below in fragrant bloom. 

I sat, and heard 
The tramp of boyish feet, and saw unseen 
The faces of dark Hal and blue-eyed Paul. 
A vine caught Hal's straw hat; the sudden jerk 
Stirred the deep nest and set the hungry bills 
To chirping. "Ha! a nest, a nest!" cries Hal. 
"You know what papa told us; here's a chance 
To pay the cherry rogues." 

They pulled apart 
The blossomed vines, and standing tiptoe looked 
At the three queer, half-naked, callow things, 
With bills wide-open, helpless in their reach. 



THE CHERRY ROGUES. 23 

Paul stretched his arm out, touched them and drew 

back 
As though the touch of the soft, fluttering' things 
Had burned his fingers. Sudden, overhead 
There came a whir, a shrill, sharp cry, and down 
Fluttered the mother; keen, beseeching fear 
And mother anguish in her eye, her shriek — 
And the swift beating of her wings. The boys 
Looked from the mother to her young: "What fun 
To kill them all!" Hal said; but Paul spoke low: 

"Do you remember when the mad dog rushed 
On us at the street corner with his jaws 
A-dripping foam, his eyes blood-shot and fierce. 
How mother ran between us and the dog 
And stretched her hands to him, a-crying out 
So pitifully that he stood stock-still, 
Stared at her, then turned off another way? 
And mother cried and hugged us, praying too. 
It was not long before she died, you know." 

Hal's eyes turned to the mother-bird, his hands 
Loosened their hold, the blossomed vines released 
Recoiled back to their place and hid once more 
The nest and the unconscious little brood 
A mother up in heaven had saved that day. 



34 HIS SOCIETY PLAY. 

HIS SOCIETY PLAY. 

A COMEDIETTA IN ONE ACT. 

Scene. — The top story of a lodging-house. Mr. Homer 
Sophocles Smith alone in his room. He holds 
up a Hotted manuscript, and exclaims: 

Success at last; 'tis finished! Happy day! 
I've written "finis" to an ordered play. 
A thrilling situation closes it; 
'Twill be, I feel assured, the season's hit. 
It is intense, yet light, with the variety 
Expected in a drama of society — 
Matching- the order, nearly as can be. 
True, 'twould have pleased me more had I been free 
To follow my own ideas, but she — 
Though vague — was quite imperious in decree. 
She is the star. "Call me not 'leading lady!' " 
She said. " 'Tis commonplace and smacks of pay- 
day." 
She's fair, though, entre nous, she's past her heyday. 
But on the day she climbed my garret's height, 
And said, as the angel to the prophet, "Write," 
To my sad eyes, she seemed indeed a star; 
For I sat there smoking my last cigar, 
Debating over a pile of unpaid bills, 
Whether to drown my genius (with my ills) 
In Hudson Bay, or turn it to a mill, 



HIS SOCIETY PLAY. 25 



Grind advertising- rhymes of a patent pill. 
She saved me — the fair star. Into the room 

. She swept — 'twas more than broom 
Had done for weeks — inclined her classic head. 

"You are a poet, sir, I am told," she said. 

"A playwright also. I am here to-day 
To order a first-class society play, 
Which I will take if pleased, terms not too high; 
But you must make it, like Jack Horner's pie, 
Full of good things— wit, sentiment, emotion. 
Fads, follies, hypnotism, divorce, devotion, 
With scope for dress-effects — a ball-room scene, 
A wedding, a scene in court. The Queen 
Of Spain ordered of Worth two gowns like mine, 
And I've a cloak that is a thing divine. 
A special scene should be for its display. 
The dialogue must be witty, tender, gay. 
With the best points for me. Mark that, I pray. 
Make the play suit; a check you'll have from me 
Or from my manager, and tickets free." 



She bent her head, like a fair wind-stirred flower, 
And glided down from my fifth-story bower. 
Then, quick to work my hopeful fancy flew. 
What shall inspire? Aha! I've credit new. 
They saw her carriage; they'll add to what is due, 
A dozen of beer, two bottles of mountain dew, 
And one of ink, a ream of paper, too. 
Then all elate, I bent me to the toil, 



26 HIS SOCIETY PLAY. 

Consumed the sunshine and the midnight oil. 
Behold the result! A play Shakespeare would 

praise, 
Though little his praise would count these latter 

days! 
I've got all in — passion and situation, 
Wit, wedding, wicked wiles, and separation. 
I wait now only the star's approbation. 
I'll read it to her. I think 'twill strike her dumb 
With pleased surprise. Ah ! here I see her come. 

[Enter Miss Marville de Montague, panting 
and fanning herself. 

"These horrid stairs! Why do you live so high?" 
'•That the gods may visit me and none espy 

And goddesses — " 

"They should have wings to fly." 
"Ah, no! They'd leave too soon. I'd have them 
stay — 

The fairest one, at least — to hear my play; 

For it is done; the last w^ord written to-day. 

You'll let me read it to you? Sit here, please; 

I've but one chair, but I've a pair of knees 

That will esteem it but a pleasure sweet 

To kneel an hour at your dainty feet." 



HIS SOCIETY PLAY. 27 

[Kneels at her feet, unfolds manuscript and proceeds 
to read the play. Pauses near the end of an im- 
passioned love scene.] 

"Isn't that a fine speech?" '"Tis too fine by far 
To give to him; it should be for the star." 

"The star must not make love." "The star makes all 
The hits in the play; the telling- things must fall 
Only to her. You'll change this scene. Go on!" 

"Change my best scene!" [aside) "Half my elation's 
gone!" 

[Besumes the reading of the play. At the end of sec- 
ond act says: 

"I am sure you must admire this situation." 

"Good heavens! how can it gain my admiration? 
'Tis good, I grant, but 'tis for the soubrette. 
Not me; 'twill make the audience forget 
My part that came before. How could 
You blunder so? I thought you understood — " 

"I understood that even a solitaire 
Shows not its worth without a setting fair. 
All parts should please; that is my creed in brief; 
You could not jest here, for your role is grief 
Throughout this scene; the next will see you rise 
To grand emotion that will melt all eyes. 
You and your lover have an equal part 
In a strong scene to thrill each listener's heart." 

"An egitaZ part! What ignorance! That would mar 



28 HIS SOCIETY PLAY. 

My right of prominence. I am the star. 

I've Paris costumes and a special car. 

I bade you write a play to make yne shine, 

Not to let other lights detract from mine. 

Have you put in that scene to show my cloak 

That cost ten thousand? No? Then you're a poke! 

You have no idea how to write a play 

For a Star, young man. I wish you a good-day!" 



[Sweeps out, setting her foot upon the manuscript 
which has fallen from the hands of the paralyzed 
poet. Enter the Manager. 

"What's this, my friend; you seem in quite a heat?" 
"She has refused it, spurned it with her feet." 
"I thought as much; I met her on the street 

Black as a storm-cloud. What was her demur?" 
"She wanted everything to be for her. 
^rt the good points." "Of course; that's the star's 

way. 
You've written, I doubt not, a good all-round play; 
But that's not wanted. I, you understand. 
Have taken that ticklish thing — a star — in hand. 
To manufacture her I've been at pains 
(Trusting the public's gullibleness for gains), 
Got up a scandal, helped on a divorce, 
Advertised wildly, bribed the critics, of course; 
Showed gorgeous pictures, with redundant eyes, 
And bust and arms, but nose reduced in size. 



HIS SOCIETY PLAY. 2ft 

Then, with a blast of trumpets, near and far 

Upon the public launched my balloon star. 

She was a 'grand success,' alleged — but, ah! 

When genius does not wing her fiery car, 

It takes a deal of gas to buoy a star. 

It takes, too, managerial skill to steer 

A creature apt with every whim to veer. 

She's spoiled, of course, having no true love of art, 

And only vanity to take its part. 

She's quick with fanciful caprice to vex us. 

More self-willed than a mustang mule of Texas, 

And kicking 'gainst each well-constructed reason 

In a way would baffle the horse-taming Gleason. 

And so, my lad, a play — to put it brief — 

Won't do for her, unless, like Joseph's sheaf, 

She stands in it alone, while th' others crouch 

Their humble insignificance to avouch. 

Don't burn your play; but put it on the shelf. 

The public sense of art will right itself. 

We'll fly our star just now. She's our sensation; 

But few stars equal a full constellation, 

And soon as fades the meretricious glamor. 

We'll come back to the good old all-round drama. 



30 A FILIBUSTER. 

A FILIBUSTER. 

REMINISCENT OF THE DAYS OF LOPEZ. 

Long' years ago, ere life had drained 

My spirit's fountain to the lees, 
While yet a wistful, dreaming child 

Beside my father's knees, 
A radiant being crossed my sphere — 

A meteor, brigh' iind high — 
A soul of fire, an e^e of light, 

That seemed not made to die. 

Oh, that blue summer by the sea! 

Some magic wraps it yet in glow 
When borne upon his buoyant words, 

I felt around me flow 
The golden airs of old romance. 

While high, heroic dreams 
Rose at his glance, as cloudy towers 

Shine out when lightning gleams. 

Poet and knight at soul was he. 

Crusader for all right and truth, 
Burning to lay on some high shrine 

The energies of youth. 
It may be judgment tempered not 

The enthusiast's eager fire; 
But glorious seemed the zeal that lit 

His spirit's strong desire. 



A FILIBUSTER. 31 

Glorious to me, whose heart was thrilled 

By words scarce understood, 
As he who heard the magic flute 

Play in the enchanted wood, 
I heard him tell of that fair isle 

Whose beauty tyrants blight, 
Whose children pine beneath their palms 

For Freedom's sacred right. 

And he had vowed to break their chains, 

Or else his blood to pour, 
In willing tide for freedom's sake 

Upon that island shore 
'A knight" — I thought — "as Godfrey was. 

Self-vowed to free a Holy Land — 
Fair Cuba on whose fateful shore 

Waits a devoted band." 

He left us for that fairy isle; 

He sailed away at evening's close; 
I watched his fading bark, and mused 
"He goes to meet his foes." 
My yearning spirit sent a prayer 

Across the blue gulf waves for him. 
And turning, all the shore seemed bare, 

And all the sunset dim. 

He perished in a hopeless cause. 
One of a brave, mistaken, band; 



32 A FILIBUSTER. 

They scooped a shallow grave for him 

Within the burning sand; 
Its only mark a lonely palm 

That in the grave has root; 
Lofty but barren, like his hopes, 

That bore, alas! — no fruit — 
No fruit from all those g-lowing hopes 

That dyed his cheek so red, 
No g-uerdon but a nameless g-rave 

With the dishonored dead! 

And this is long ago, but now 

The rallying- "Freedom" cry. 
Echoing- once more from the fair shore 

That heard his latest sigh, 
Bring-s back his face; and through the mists 

I seem, as on that summer's close. 
To watch his fading- sail and muse 
"He goes to meet his foes." 



MORO— A DUMB SAVIOR. 



MORO— A DUMB SAVIOR. 

Ho! Moro, Moro, my dog, where are you? 

Moro: He has gone — he has left me: he 

The last, the only friend. Forsaken by him, 

By the one living thing that clung to me 

When the storm stripped my life ; who followed me 

Through cold and hunger and wild, weary tramps 

On the bleak highways ! So, at last, he's gone ! 

Lured by the smell of Athol's savory meats, 

The warmth of Athol's hearth. 

An hour ago, 
When I met Athol yonder in the street, 
He said, with insolent pity in his look, 
"Sell me that dog. He taxes you too sore 
To feed him. Here's your price " "Sell you my dog! 
Sell the one thing that keeps alive in me 
A spark of trust in anything on earth? 
Never! Your gold has bought all that was mine — 
My lands, my home, my friends, my promised bride. 
It cannot buy my dog: he would not go; 
Your chains could never hold him, he would leave 
Your juicy meats to come and share my crust. 
Put up your gold: it can not buy my dog." 

"We'll see," he said, and turned upon his heel. 
The low-born insolent ! His gold had bought 
My old, proud home, my flattering friends, the graves 
3 



34 MORO— A DUMB SAVIOR. 

Of my dead sires; aye, even her — my love 

With eyes as blue as heaven, as full of truth 

(I would have sworn so once) as heaven of stars. 

Godl how I loved her, how I trusted her I 

How her voice thrilled me on that summer night 

"When, with her hands in mine, I said: " My love, 

A flickering star of fame has mocked my hopes 

Since dreaming boyhood. Never did it beam 

With steady glow, till now — now that it shines 

In your sweet eyes. Now I will follow it. 

For bays are worth the winning but to lay 

At your dear feet." But she: " I love you not 

For laurels or for gold, but for yourself, 

Your own proud manhood and your faithful heart." 

These were her words. Just Heaven, that lips so fair 
Could utter words so false! Not care for gold! 
'Twas all she cared for. When 'twas swept away 
Her love went with it. All my faith went, too — 
All my proud dreams; my star of fame went down. 
And whelmed in black despair I fled the place, 
A beggared outcast: home, friends, love — all gone. 

With curses on my lips and brain on fire, 

I fled through the wet night that shut me round 

While gleamed the city lights afar. I cried, 

" I stand alone, with not one living thing 

To care what doom despair may drive me to." 

But as I spoke a soft head touched my knee, 



MORO— A DUMB SAVIOR. 35 

A warm tongue lapped my hand. Dumb sympathy 
Of a poor brute ! my faithful dog had broke 
His chain to follow me. 

My faithful dog ! 
Ha, ha! There is no faith in man or beast 
Upon this hollow globe. My dog is gone, 
Yonder in Athol's home that once was mine. 
He followed him — lured by his bait of food. 
The craven-hearted wretch! True, he was starved; 
But so am I. Yet I spurned Athol's gold. 
Offered as price for him. Well, he is gone! 

Why did I come back here? I know too well. 

I came, poor fool, to look upon the ground 

Her foot had pressed. Perchance, she loved me still: 

Her father made her turn from me. Who knows? 

Perchance I'd find her pale of cheek and pined 

With weeping for the outcast she still loved. 

Ah, fool! Why, never in the days gone by, 

When my hot kisses fed its budding bloom, 

Did her cheek blossom with so rich a rose 

As glowed on it to-nrght. How proud she looked. 

In those far-trailing robes of moonlit silk, 

The rubies glittering on the foam-white hand 

That lay on Athol's arm! She did not see 

The wretch who, crouched in the shadow, watched her 

pass. 
He saw me: Athol, proud, triumphant Athol, 
Who'd told me that I had not bread to feed 
My dog awhile before. He knew me now. 



36 MORO— A DUMB SAVIOR. 

He bent his head and whispered in her ear, 
And broke into a mocking laugh, while she — 
Arched her white neck and smiled with scorn-cm^ved 

lips. 
Hark to the music! She is dancing now! 
That waltz of Weber! Ah! how sweet it is! 
How the tall windows blaze! Fair forms flash by, 
Whirling like brilliant blossoms in the mad 
Maelstrom of melody. Yes, they dance. 
They feast. My dog feasts yonder in the halls 
My proud ancestors reared. And I — I stand 
Beneath the mocking stars and freezing skies 
Deserted, friendless, gnawed by hunger-pangs. 
Curses upon them! If there be a hell, 
When earth is hell enough, I'd brave its fires 
A thousand years for leave to crush them here. 
And make them suffer as I suffer now. 

Why should I suffer? There's one refuge still. 
When life grows torture we can shake it off. 
Death beckons us with shadowy hand, and points 
To the abyss of nothingness and rest. 
Rest — is it rest? What if this fever-dream 
Of life goes on beyond the grave — out.-ide 
The shattered temple of the flesh, as birds 
Still flutter blindly round a broken nest? 
It is too mad a doubt. The dead are dead. 
The hour is past for dotard's dreams. 
And yet — 



MORO— A DUMB SAVIOR. 37 

My mother's prayers, her cradle hymns — Away 
These memories! They shall not hold me back 
Like clinging arms from the abyss of death, 
Let death be what it may! 

Here I hold 
In my right hand the key to its mysteries. 
This vial of dark fluid— spell of sleep 
The last, the dreamless — pressed from poppy bloom, 
This solves the doubt; this breaks the fever-dream; 
This lays a palsying spell on blood and limb 
And burning bi ain, and lo, the wild dream is done. 
Quenched in the Lethean flood of nothingness. 
Scorn, poverty, cold, hunger are no more ; 
No more keen pangs when friends prove treacherous, 
When even the last dumb friend forsakes. 

Dance on. 
Feast on. I shall not heed you now. 
Stare at me, mystic Heaven, in cold rebuke. 
Far, silent stars, what care you or your God 
For human woe? Safe sits your God on high, 
Tracing the shining paths of whirling worlds 
And mighty systems, lighting up new suns. 
What cares He for one burning human heart? 

Yet he gives death. It is the best He gives. 
For this I thank Him, and I greet thee, Death. 
Dark essence of the poppy, kiss my lips 
And steal their breath forever. Earth, farewell! 



38 MORO-— A DUMB SAVIOR. 

Ha! what is this! Who dares to grasp my arm? 
Moro, my dog! Have you come back, my dog? 
Come back from Athol's food and fire to mef 
Why do you pluck my sleeve? What's this you've laid 
Here at my feet? Why, bread! You've brought me 

bread. 
My poor dog! 'Twas for this you left me, then? 
You sought to save me, and I thought — I thought — 
Forgive me, Moro. I have wronged you, dog. 
What if I have wronged my fellow-men as well! 

And my starved dog, seeing his master's strait. 
Stole in and begged the bread I could not ask. 
And brought it here, despite his own sore need. 
And bids me eat with eager, wagging tail 
And wistful eyes! If there's such depth of love 
And sacrificing pity in a brute. 
Can man be wholly callous? I will hope. 

My dog, you have saved me. I will live. Nay, more: 
I will shake off this lethargy of despair. 
This spell of the demon Drink that bade me drown 
My woe in its cursed nej)enthe. From this hour 
That chain is broken. Faith and hope come back 
Like a bright flood of sunshine. No, my dog, 
Who would have died with me, you shall not starve: 
Nor shall your trust be shamed. I'll win it back, 
The crown I threw down in my fierce des[)air — 
The crown of manhood — worth all crowns beside. 



ANACREON. 



ANACREON. 



Yon sea-like stretch of darkening pines 

Is surging with the tempest's power, 
An d not one star of promise shines 

Upon this twilight hour. 
With wailing sounds the blast is rife, 

And wilder yet the echoes roll 
Up from the scenes where wo and strife. 

Convulse the human soul. 
'Tis madness rules the fateful hour, 
Let me forget its saddening power; 
Drop low the curtains of my room, 
And in the rose and purple gloom, 
Lose sight of angry men and stormy skies, 
Gazing, Anacreon, on thy pictured eyes. 

My grand old Greek! far back in time, 

Thy glorious birth-hour lies: 
Thy shade has heard the tread sublime 

Of passing centuries; 
And yet the soul that thrilled thy lyre 

Has power to charm us still. 
And with its vivid light and fire 

Our duller spirits fill. 
Breathe on me. Spirit, rare and fine, 
Buoyant with energy divine; 
The light, the joy of earlier days 
Live in those blue eyes' dazzling rays; 
They lift my soul from its confining cage. 
The barriers of this dull and sordid age. 



40 ANACREON. 

I dream I am a girl of Greece, 

With pliant shape and foam-white arms, 
And locks that fall in brig-ht release 

To veil my bosom's charms. 
The skies of Greece above me bend, 
The Eg-ean winds are in my hair, 
I hear g-lad songs and shoutings send 

Their music on the air. 
I see a gay procession pass: 
The girls throw garlands on the grass, 
And crowned with myrtle and with bay, 
I see thee tread that flowery way, 
While swim before me, smiling fields and skies. 
Dimmed by a glance from thy resplendant eyes . 

Prince of the lyre, thy locks are white 

As Blanc's untrodden snow; 
But quenchless in its warmth and light, 

Thy blue eye beams below; 
Love's myrtle twines thy bays among, 

For love is thine in sooth; 
The lips that have his praises sung 

Are touched with deathless youth. 
The bard dwells, aye, in springtime land, 
Where Innocence and Passion stand — 
Ardent, yet pure, clasped hand in hand; 
And years but add a richer grace, 
A subtler charm to mind and face; 
While Youth and Beauty — which his dreams eclipse 
Bend to the magic of his tender lips. 



ANACREON. 41 

Oh! heart of love and soul of fire, 

My spirit bows to thee, 
Type of the ideals that inspire 

My dreams eternally. 
I'd be a slave to such as thou, 

And deem myself a queen. 
If sometimes to my kneeling- brow 

Those perfect lips might lean. 
High hopes and aims within my breast, 
Would spring- from their despairing rest. 
And the wild energies that sleep, 
Like pi'isoned genii, would outleap. 
And bid my name among the immortals shine 
If fame to me could mean such love as thine. 



"BEAUTIFUL FLOWER." 

The Indians of the Tuscarora Tribe gave the name, "Beautiful 
Flower," to Mrs. Erminnie Smith, the scientitic explorer, whom 
the Smit souian Institute had sent among he Indian tribes of the 
West to compile a dictionary of the Aborigines language, and to 
study the traits, habits and peculiarities of the Six Tribes This 
little poem was written or the memorial volume, published in 
Boston, by Lee & Shephard, on the annivei sary of the death of 
this brilliant aud beloved woman. 

Spring comes to wake the earth from winter sadness, 

To quicken too our memory of One 
Whose Spirit of electric life and gladness 

Shone on us with an influence like the sun. 



42 "BEAUTIFUL FLOWER." 

A Spirit that Death's cloud too quickly shaded, 
Though but to us it suffered an eclipse, 

For us — awhile — her tender smile has faded 
And hushed the music of her eloquent lips. 

A soul like her's we know must be eternal, 
Strong to inspire, and quick to thrill and warm: 

It still must live — whether on shores supernal 
Or re-incarnate in some noble form 

We cannot know; our souls thrill with emotion 
And yearnings high, yet lie we on Time's shore, 

Shut in this mortal shell, while the great ocean 
Of Mystery pulses round us evermore. 

But even here her spirit is immortal: 
It echoes like sweet music through our days; 

It beckons to us from some mystic portal 

Through which stream on us broader, purer rays. 

It still sounds for us the key-note of her spirit — 
Love for all things — love strong to help and save — 

Love even for the sad races that inherit 
Defeat and shame far by the Western wave. 

O deathless soul of love, and fire, and beauty, 
Who faded from our sight one day in spring, 

As that sad day rolls round our loving duty 

Bids us dear memories and fresh flowers to bring 

Votive to you; the thought of you comes o'er us 
Sweet as a breath of perfume mixed with song; 



TOO LATE. 43 

Blown from some tropic island where a chorus 
Of song- and sweetness breathes the whole year 
long— 

And all life's little cares fade in a vision 
Of vast wide splendor, safe from all eclipse, 

Where bright we see your face in light elysian 
And catch the smile of your sweet, tender lips. 



TOO LATE. 

Believe me, I have read the stars aright. 
Never, beloved, shall our two lives unite, 
Never, while roses bloom or northers blight. 

But do not murmur; bow the head to fate. 

The bar seems slight to you, strong, passionate; 

But it is iron; we have met too late. 

Too late for any linking of our lives or lips. 
On life's wide waste, we are but passing ships, 
Or planets, whose conjoining brings eclipse. 

Yet send one ray to me, my spirit's star; 
Waft me a breath, oh! spicy sails afar — 
Across the dreary waves and stormy bar. 

Such warmth, such balm shall be as sun and dew 
To every blossom, whether of rose or rue 
My life may bear, I'll owe my best to you. 



44 HIGH AND LOW. 

HIGH AND LOW. 

A STORY OF LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN. 

Spring's touch had bade the valley thrill, 
But on the heights 'twas winter still. 
To-day, a warmer breath brought dreams 
Of music to the melting streams. 
And blurred the sky with vapors dim, 
Till clouds lay sleeping on its rim. 
Waking they spread wide wings of gloom; 
And soon the thunder's heavy boom 
Startled the air. 

"Ah! from the tomb 
Of Spring at last has rolled the stone. 
She is set free, in loosened zone, 
To dance down to her waiting throne — 

Down on the silver stairs of Rain." 
I said to one 1 stood beside; 

Then saw his eyes were dark with pain. 
His lips were closely pressed to hide. 

I knew his mood; I did not speak; 
The lightning played upon his cheek; 
Turning, he said, the Thunder's bell 
From yon cloud-turret — 'twas a spell — 
A ghost it summoned — ! No, 'tis not 
A story worth the while to tell; 



HIGH AND LOW. 45 

A rift in boyhood's cloudy lot 

That darkened soon; 'twas half forgot; 

That peal has rent the mists away 

And flashed it back, fresh as that day — 

Ten years ago — a day like this. 

The valley blushed with Spring's first kiss; 

The heights, yet clothed in winter snow, 

Stood cold and white against the glow 

Of Sun-et, where a wealth of cloud 

Darkened, as now, for Evening's shroud. 

She had climbed the heights; upon a ledge 

Of jutting rock, at its sheer edge. 

Stood her lone figure, dark and slight, 

Against the sky's red, stormy light. 

So lost in thought, she saw not me, 

As stealing from a cedar tree, 

I crept so near, a curl was blown 

Back from her cheek and brushed my own. 

Sudden, the storm-god's cloudy tent 
By Lightning's fiery sword was rent. 
A deep peal awed the world of white 
And echoed from each solemn height. 
She started at the burst of sound; 
Close at her feet the treacherous ground 
Gives way; and crashes down the steep; 
But she is safe — safe in the round 
Of my strong arms. I hold her there, 
My cheek against her silken hair, 



46 HIGH AND LOW. 

One breathless moment; then she stands, 
Erect and pale; her trembling hands 
Fling back the cloud of loosened hair; 
Her proud lips shape: "How did you dare?" 
Her eyes a gentler speech declare. 
The blood to her white cheek springs warm; 

She murmurs thanks and speeds away; 
Is it to 'scape the gathering storm, 

Or stormy words my lips might say? 

"And you never said them?" 

No; not I. 
They were exhaled in one bitter sigh, 
I was lowly and she was high — 

As they sung last night at the 'Pinafore'; 
1 plowed the fields of her father's lands — 

She could watch me from her mansion's door — 
Work's hard callouses marked my hands, 
Her fingers sparkled with jeweled bands. 

But the years bring changes, and to-day 
She would not hold it shame, I think. 

That her head on my breast one moment lay, 
When I snatched her from the crumbling brink. 

I have won a name— so the world will say. 
As in this free land a strong will may." 



HIGH AND LOW. 47 

" And she — have you seen her ? " 

"Yes? last night 
She sang in the chorus. All in white, 
Like an angel, but no angel she ; 
The painted cheek, the restless eye, 

They told a story sad to me. 
(In the midst of the mirth you heard me sigh) 
I thought of the proud old father, dead, 
The home in ruins, the riches fled; 
The daughter wed where her heart was not, 
Hating her poverty-narrowed lot; 
Flying at last to ease and shame. 
Lured by a treacherous passion-fla'ne, 
To hear through remorseful years the cry 
Of the little child she had left to die— 

I heard that cry through the opera's trill- 
But I swear, though I met her conscious eye, 

And saw her smile till my blood ran chill, 
I never recalled the moment when 

I held her close on the snowy hill. 
While the Spring's first lightning lit the glen. 
No— not till now, when that thunder's bell 
Summoned it up, like a wizard's spell; 
Do you wonder it seemed to me a knell?" 



48 MY LOVE AND MY LADY. 



MY LOVE AND MY LADY. 

Filled to the brim with mystical wine 
Is the silver bowl of the moon tonight, 

Filled to the brim, 

And from its rim 
Spills over a stream that is wonderful-bright. 
I can count my lady's gems by its light, 
The diamonds that heave on her bosom white. 

And circle her fingers slim. 

From her brimful cup the summer moon 
Poured out, one year ago. 

Her mystic wine 

Of the rare white shine. 
Like a summer dream of the snow. 

And we sat in the gleam 

Of its tender stream, 
My love, with the face like a flower of June, 
My love and I in the meadow sweet, 
And the grasses caressed her little feet, 
And the cricket sung her a tune. 

Oh! true little heart that beat so high. 
How could I work you ill? 

Lips once a-thrill. 

Why are you still 
Cold, cold to my passionate cry ? 
"Forgive, forgive." Ah, the winds go by. 
Whispering "too late" to my pleading sigh — 

Go by to the grave on the hill. 



THE BRIDGE OF ASPHODELS. 

Pour your wine, your mystical wine, 

Oh, Moon of the summer night! 
On my lady's brow of the marble fine, 
On my lady's hair of the gold star-shine, 

And her breast with gems bedight. 

But sweeter — oh, saintly Nun of the night! — 
Sweeter, I know, from your urn of light, 

Will drop your wine 

Like tears divine 
In the cups of the daisies that make so white 
A grave that lies on yon lonesome height — 

My sad heart's secret shrine. 



THE BRIDGE OF ASPHODELS. 

A Dream-spirit bent o'er my couch last night, 
And stole with its witchery, my soul away ; 

Through my lips half-parted it took its flight, 
As a bee escapes from a blossom of May. 

Away through the fields of cerulean space, 
Where the clustering planets like lilies shine, 

Went that silent Dream with the tender face, 
Hand in hand, with this ^oul of mine. 

'Till she paused on the archway of pale asphodels, 
Which the darksome gulf of mortality spans, 

Wheie souls are carried in slumber's spells 
To hold in brief visions the angels' hands. 
4 



oO THE LAST PLEDGE. 

And to meet for a while with the loved and the lost, 
On that shadowy bridge where strange lights are 
a-gleam, 

Strange echoes afloat, while each newly-made ghost 
Glides noiselessly over the mute-flowing stream. 

But I heard not the music, that faint and afar, 
Came like audible fragrance from Heaven's fair 
shore ; 

And 1 saw not the halo like mist 'round a star, 
That was wreathing and floating around and before. 

For my spirit met yours on that far away spot. 
My hand thrilled in yours, as in meetings of yore; 

I knew by your smile that I was not forgot. 
And what asked I, or hoped I, or cared I for more? 



THE LAST PLEDGE. 
»* Pledge me in death's black wine."— Old Ballad. 

The tide of ^he river flows dark as death, 

Where these shelving banks the rays eclipse; 
The winds in the laurels hold their breath, 

The dead sleep yonder in marble crypts ; 
(Cold in the silence of hoary shade). 

The roar of the distant city's tide 
Is drowned in the sound of the hoarse cascade; 

The sunset's pageant — purple, wide, 



THE LAST PLEDGE. 51 

Rests on the rim of yon pine-clad hill. 

Turn your face to its solemn light 
And say — do you dare this glass to fill 

And bid me drink to our parting night ? 

Here, as we stand on this shelving rock, 

While the river below with greedy lips 
Gurgles for joy that a step or a shock 

Would send us down to its black eclipse ; 
With the dead back there, and the sunset here, 

And the deep death tempting me down below; 
Do you dare with never a prayer or a tear 

To say "We are parting — I must go. 
There is another claims my life — 

A love that is fruitful as summer rain; 
Ours is barren and marred with strife, 

Dashed with fever and crossed with pain ; 
Forget it; sing the songs of your land, 

Soaring soul that I've held for an hour 
Like a wild bird shut in my prisoning hand, 

I loose you : go, with your glorious dower." 

You can say this with your lips, your eyes, 

That hold all the light of the world for me ? 
Well, there's no call for reproach or for sighs ; 

They would but weary you: let it be. 
I drink to the end of the dream, but stay ! 

Let me look once more on you, beautiful dream ; 
Eyes of the twilight's mystical gray, 

Locks like the sunlit forest stream, 



62 THE LAST PLEDGE. 

Mouth — oh sweetest and cruelest mouth ! 

Where did you learn that subtle art, 
To smile with the tenderness of the South, 

To curl with scorn that must break the heart ? 
Press no kisses on mine proud lip ; 

My heart aches full of their memory now, 
And I must smile as I lightly sip 

This wine of parting-. Never a vow 
This parting breaks : there was never a pledge 

To bind us — only love flowed free 
As the river under this dizzy ledge 

And so free are you, of all claim from me. 

And I ? — oh yes ; I am free : the bird 

You held in your hand, you have looked, you say 
To soar and sing as .of old and be hoard 

Above love's mists in a higher day. 
Ah me ! The shape of the wing — and the song 

Have been molded too long by that prisoning hand; 
Freedom is idle and life is long, 

And death is a spring in a desert land, 
Sweeter to fevered lips than wine ; 

So I will not drink yours, I pour it down, 
Amber-bright in the sunset-shine, 

Into the waters. Do not frown. 
I will pledge goodbye in a costlier drink, 

Steeped in Nepenthe's poppied spell, 
Dipped from a darker river's brink ; 

For I could not lose you and live — farewell. 



FLIGHT SOUTHWARD. 68 



FLIGHT SOUTHWARD. 

Our sunshine all must g-o 

With you, who soon will be 
In a land where never the snow 
Chills the sweet winds that blow 

Fresh from the kiss of the sea. 
Warm be the skies that shall fold 
You with their blue and their gold, 
Though you leave us the gloom and the cold. 

Go where the sunlit waves 

Are opaline like your eyes ; 
Your tropical nature craves 
The sunshine that soothes and saves, 

The loveliness soft as si^ihs. 
Their spells may still the unrest 
That beats its wings in your breast. 

Go to the land of the sun, 

Thou of the summer-soul, 
When our days are dim and dun. 
We will trust that yours are spun 

Of the Parcae's sunniest gold. 
When the birds fly South through the blue, 
We will waft them a message for you. 



54 A ROSE IN MY NEIGHBOR'S GARDEN. 



A ROSE IN MY NEIGHBOR'S GARDEN. 

Sweet, fresh Rain, light-fing-ered Rain, 
That tapped last night at my window pane ; 
You are my friend : you have loosed apart 
The green swathes binding my rose's heart — 
My rose, yes mine by a poet's right 
As the stars are mine on the crest of night. 
It blossoms across my neighbor's fence. 
He may sell it to-day for so many pence — 
Tear it away from its swaying throne, 
Yet the rose is mine — my very own, 
Mine in its crown of splendid bloom, 
Its diamond rain, its sweet perfume. 

" One kiss, my beauty," I say, "and part," 
As I pass on my way to the dusty mart, 
But I carry off, embalmed in my heart, 
All this color and fragrance and grace 
To brighten and sweeten my thoughts apace, 
So you are mine, you marvelous thing ; 
To me is the comforting message you bring 
From the rain, the sun and the sweet, kind earth- 
First mother, who brooded over your birth — 
As over mine; lairt mother too. 
Who shall take us soon to her bosom true ; 
But we shall have lived in this wonderful world, 
Have seen the sunset's banners unfurled, 
Have felt the sunshine and drank the rain, 
And given what we could to the world again. 
So my rose, we shall not have lived in vain. 



NIGHT BEFORE THE EXECUTION. 55 



NIGHT BEFORE THE EXECUTION. 

She stands upon the dung^eon floor, 
Swathed in her night-black hair. 

She does not pray, she does not weep, 

Despair is still when it is deep 
And knows not moan or prayer. 

She dares not move her fettered feet 

To stamp in frenzy's might; 
She fears the clanking chain to hear ; 
It rouses phantoms full of fear 

In the dead, silent night. 

So, mute and motionless she stands, 

But through her fevered brain 
The thronging memories go and come, 
Unshadowed by the pall of doom. 
Untainted by the dungeon gloom — 

A bright, but mocking train. 

In gorgeous pleasure-halls she seems 

To sweep, a festal queen ; 
White curves her proud neck, jewel-bound. 
Dark wreathe her tresses, plume encrowned, 

Stately yet soft her mien. 

Gems clasp the arm's unsullied snow 

That rusty chains now hide ; 
And he had clasped them, kneeling low. 



56 NIGHT BEFORE THE EXECUTION. 

With the fond grace she learned to know 
And watch for with a guilty glow — 
She, she another's bride. 

His rare, soft eyes ! a serpent guile 

In their dark shadow lay, 
Subtle in beauty, strong in power, 
It watched for her unguarded hour 

And made her life its prey. 

She gave him all that woman can — 

Surrendered him her soul ; 
She would have walked with him through hell, 
Nor heard the tortured spirits yell. 
Led by his presence-mastering spell 

And passion's wild control. 

She had done for him — what ? Oh, God! 

The haunting vision comes! 
She sees the dead, the murdered dead. 
With livid, poison hues o'erspread! 
His kind, true lips, his hoary head — 

How plain the specter looms! 

Just heaven, the horror of that look! 

Calm, sad, but stern as fate ; 
She feels that it foretells the doom 
That, past the scaffold, past the tomb, 
Stares at her from Hereafter's gloom, 

And ever moans " Too late!" 



NIGHT BEFORE THE EXECUTION. 57 

She can not bear it ; she must scream 

Thoug-h all the fiends awake; 
No, it is g-one! it leaves her now 
With the cold sweat upon her brow 

And limbs that cramp and quake. 

Deep silence fills the freezing cell ; 

Not even her pulses stir. 
Hark I what faint sound falls on her ear! 
The note of the far chanticleer, 
Crying", " The morning laughcth near," 

What brings that day to her ? 

That awful day that comes — her last! 

Horror congeals her blood. 
A vision of that day appears, 
A sea of faces turns to hers ; 
And what is this that clasps, that stirs ? 

The rope — the rope — oh, God! 

It tightens, chokes! No, it is but 

A coil of clammy hair ; 
She flings it like a serpent off, 
But still she hears the crowd's deep scoff. 

Still those dark ranks appear. 
A thousand cold, unpitying eyes 

Turn to her standing there, 
Intent to see the fatal rope 
Throttle the struggling life and hope, 
And swing the soul beyond the scope 

Of earth and time — oh! where ? 



58 THE WOMAN DOCTOR. 

She starts — amid that sea-like throng 

One face a frenzy brings. 

He comes to gloat on her despair, 

His look, his scorn she will not bear ; 

Forward she springs to curse him there. 

Her footing fails, black grows the air! 

Just Heaven! she swings, she swings! 
***** -x- 

She falls upon the dungeon floor 

In deep and deadly swoon ; 
The night's wild dreams and fears are o'er 
Would she might lie there overmore. 

Nor wake for sun or moon! 

But she will wake from that brief rest 
To hear the hammer's sound 

Upon her scaffold's lofty height. 

And she will go, all cold and white, 

And act the vision of to-night 
Before the gazing crowd. 



THE WOMAN DOCTOR. 

In the pretty town of Somers 

We were just installed — new-comers, 

When my darling sister Sue — 

Girl as lovely as she's true — 

Fell a victim to the fever, 

Gripping her as a retriever 

Grips his g^ame. It wouldnH leave h«r. 



THE WOMAN DOCTOR. 60 

Her physician — one called Proctor — 
Was a grim and surly doctor ; 
His eyes were red and bleary, 
And his breath was always beery ; 
Thoug-h he gave her draught and pill, 
Sue grew weak and weaker still, 
Going gradually downhill. 

Till at last I said to Proctor : 
" You shall no more play the doctor 
To my sister ; you have mocked her 
Go, you drunken Esculape, 
Ere I take you by the nape ; 
Take your form from off our door. 
And return there — nevermore." 

To the servant then I said : 
" Bring a man here with a head, 

Bring me straight a new physician." 

He departed on his mission. 

When he came next to our door, 
"Here," he said, "is Dr. Moore." 

By the gods it was a woman! 

Had it been a thing unhuman 

I could not have stared more wildly — 

But the woman took it mildly. 

Woman! she was but a girl 

With a brow of purest pearl, 

Not a bang, though, -not a curl; 

Straight, serene and calmly serioui, 



60 THE WOMAN DOCTOR. 

With a look a bit imperious, 
As without blush or demur, 
" Show me to the patient, Sir," 
Said this most surprising vision. 
This sweet, stately girl-physician. 

I felt snubbed ; I put on airs, . 

Stiff as deacons at their prayers ; 

But she little heeded me ; 

With a bow, slight as could be. 

She passed on, leaned over Sue, 

Bent on her those eyes of blue. 

Talked so wisely and so true. 

With such calm self-confidence. 

So much modesty and sense. 

So much science and such kindness. 

That I felt I'd 1 een in blindness 

Scorning women who had missions 

To be lawyers or physicians. 

As though sex should ever ban 

Women any more than man 

From just doing what they can. 

Then my sister — she got well. 

But — I grieve the tale to tell, 

I am now more truly ill — 

Past the help of draught or pill, 

And unless this fair M. D., 

This most potent, magic " >S/ie," 

Shall my fevered pulses still, 

By one word's sweet whispered thrill, 

Why, this heart complaint will kill. 



THE AVENGING GHOST. 61 



THE AVENGING GHOST 

They were two brothers, dwelling- by the sea 

In an old man>ion, hoary with long- years ; 

Shadowed by dark old cedars, facing cliffs 

That jutted sheer to the green, foaming waves 

Breaking against their base. They were the last 

Of a proud race, save an old gray-haired sire. 

And they three dwelt in that old sea-beat home; 

They — and one other — a sweet orphan girl. 

Willowy and tall, with the dark eyes and hair 

Of her dead mother— she whom the old man 

Had loved in youth and who had left her child, 

When she lay dying, to his faithful care. 

Her trust was well fulfilled; the girl had grown 

To womanhood with scarce a care to cloud 

Her lovely brow, save some sweet yearning for 

The sympathy and presence of her sex. 

Carlyon and Vance had been to her for long 

Only as brothers ; till one fateful day, 

When she had been in peril of her life, 

On a lone sand bar that the rising tide 

Threatened to whelm with her — (her skiff being gone. 

Each brother in his boat rowed for dear life, 

To reach her ere the waves rose to her lips ; 

And Carlyon reached her first, and gathering her 

In his impassioned arms pressed kisses warm — 

Too warm for a brother — on her trembling mouth. 

And Vance looked on, a darkness on his brow, 



62 THE AVENGING GHOST. 

A gleam, like sullen lightning, in his eye; 
And from that hour, fraternal love was turned 
To hate and jealousy, though he kept it locked 
Deep in his breast, and brooded on it there. 
And gave no sign, even when the wedding-day 
Drew close at hand. 

It came at last. 
The brothers both set forth on the calm bay 
To bring the priest from the village, whose white spires 
Were traced on the blue sky. The day was calm, 
But nursed on its hot breast a storm that woke 
Near sunset, with an eye of flame, a breath 
That tossed the waters. From her balcony. 
In her white bride-dress, Elan stood and watched. 
Anxious yet not distressed; she knew how well 
The two could cleave the billows in their boat 
With sinewy arms and skillful oars. She stood 
Till fell the twilight, then the boat came back, 
But not the bridegroom ; he, alas ! was drowned, 
Had perished in the capsizing of the boat. 
So said his brother ; and he w^as believed ; 
There was none to gainsay his word ; the priest, 
Scared at the storm, had shaken his hoary head 
And muttered 'twas too ominous a day 
For a bridal. 

Ah, the young bride's grief, 
The old father's anguish ! Carlyon was his pride. 
And Vance was wild-eyed, ghastly as the corpse 
The cruel waves cast on the shore next day. 



THE AVENGING GHOST 68 

Deep gloom settled upon the dreary house 
Hid in the cedar shades ; the billows' moan 
Was echoed drearily from Elan's lips. 

But time will pass a healing hand o'er wounds, 
However deep . As months and months went on 
Vance dared to speak his love ; his father urged 
Elan to take on her the nearer tie, 
And so, once more a wedding-day broke clear, 
And Vance and Elan sat upon the porch 
In the soft twilight ; round her slender waist 
His arm had stolen, and he drew to his 
Her passive lips. No passionate joy was hers — 
Her heart was buried in that sea-washed grave. 
But he was all a-throb with burning love 
And restless, feverish triumph, and he drank 
The wine of that sweet kiss with eager lips, 
Murmuring : "My own — " but suddenly broke off, 
Turned ghastly — trembled like a storm-blown reed, 
And started from her. " What is it ? " she cried. 
In her amaze. " Do you not see ? Look there I 
Look at his dead-white face — his dripping hair ; 
And yet his eyes are wide ; they gaze at me, 
Oh, God ! with just that look of wild, sad pain 
And deep reproach as when I thrust him down, 
Back in the water with the oar that struck 
The fatal blow ; there is its bloody mark ! 
Do you not see ? Just God ! he beckons me ; 
He points out to the sea — yes, I will go — 
There is no help ; no rest ; I've fought it long. 
The bride I've sinned for never shall be mine." 



64 WINTER RAIN. 

With these wild words, he rushed straight to the cliff, 
And flung himself sheer from its beetling brow 
Down in the boiling, rock-tormented waves. 
The will of Him who ?aid " Vengeance is Mine " 
Had been fulfilled once more upon the Earth. 



WINTER RAIN. 

The rain drips sullenly from the eaves ; 

But far — on the bed of fallen leaves, 

It falls with a cheering, musical sound 

As it called to a spirit under the ground. 

To the w^aiting soul of the April flowers. 

Which the dead leaves hide from the winter hours. 

Under the brown leaves, sodden and dead, 

Sleep the violets, safe in their bed ; 

All the rain and snow that we rue 

Will only deepen their hearts of blue 

When the Spring shall kiss them, warm and true. 

Best beloved, in w^hose violet eye 
I have watched the sunshine die. 
Under the dead and sorrowful years 
You buried your heart with slow, sad tears; 
But I hear a voice that my soul believes 
In the sound of the rain upon the leaves; 
Under the dead years' winter gloom 
The violet, love, still lives — to bloom. 



MYRRHA, THE GREEK BRIDE. 65 



MYRRHA, THE GREEK BRIDE 

The Moslem's evening call to prayer 

No longer clove the echoing air. 

The sunset's purple citadel 

Dissolved as at some silent spell 

Into a fairy sea of rose, 

Through which the star of evening grows 

As some white lily in a lake, 

Whose dreaming waters never wake. 

The mosques and minarets that rose 
Against that sky of calm repose 
Show darker, and more gloomy falls 
The shadow of the palace walls 
Across the dark Bosphorus tide 
That laves the palace's marble side- 
Palace, whose guarded walls shut in 
So much magnificence and sin. 
Darkening and motionless it lay 
Upon the calm, upheaving bay. 
Till, in a breath, 'tis broken. Swift, 
But noiseless as a leaf may drift, 
A boat, swan-breabted, shoots inside 
The shadow-outline streaming wide. 
Close to the wall it presses ; where 
A slender balcony, carved and fair, 
Juts high above ; it pauses there ; 
The boatman rises ; nobler shape 



66 MYRRHA, THE GREEK BRIDE. 

The Turkish mantle may not drape : 

Those limbs were worthy knightly mail, 

That turbaned brow so proud and pale 

Were better helmeted ; the fire 

In those gray eyes is from the pyre 

Of joy consumed — a burning ire 

Beneath the ashes of keen pain. 

He stands a moment — then a strain 

Escapes his lips— a Turkish air, 

Low sung but marvelous sweet and clear. 

It floats up to the palace walls, 

And on the wondering ear it falls 

Of one who on a divan lies 

With weary anguish in her eyes, 

Mocking the roses in her hair, 

The pearls that make her neck more fair. 

The robe, whose gem-embroidered zone 

Only a favored slave may own ; 

She hears that song in Turkish sung, 

But that was never Turkish tongue; 

'Tis the Greek accent ; quick the blood 

Stains her white cheek — shame's burning flood. 

Oh, wild despair — that song, that air. 

She would fly from it — did she dare ! 

But still its music chains her ear. 

"Myrrha, the sun has left the sky. 
Come with the light of thy dark eye. 
Come, oh, come. 



MYRRHA, THE GREEK BRIDE. 67 

Myrrha, there's sorrow in the sea, 
I want thy voice's melody ; 
Come with thy tones, the pure, the free, 
And bid these maddening- visions flee, 
Come, oh, come." 

Yes, it is his, 'tis Otho's voice. 
Once it had made each pulse rejoice. 
But now ! — Yet still her step it draws 
Out to the balcony— there, a pause — 
One quick look down, her eager eyes 
Have pierced at once the Turk's disguise. 
Whiter she g-rows beneath his gaze — 
Her young Greek lover of old days — 
Days ere the Turk's red, pitiless hand 
Had torn her from her native land. 
The blazing ruins of her home. 
And caged her here, beneath this dome. 
That is to her a living grave, 
To be the Sultan's toy and slave, 
To bear caresses from the hand 
Red with the life-blood of her land ; 
To feel that hand's relentless power 
Closing around her hour by hour. 
Despite her prayers and struggles, till 
It crushes hope and strength and will. 
And leaves her like a dove whose wings 
Scarce shudder in the'Serpent's rings. 



68 MYRRHA, THE GREEK BRIDE. 

Ah ! who that comes within these walls, 
Where subtle sin enwinds, enthralls, 
Where music, perfume, luxury all 
Bear the lulled spirit to its fall, 
Where the drugged cup that white hands fill 
Is handmaid to the tyrant's will, 
While subtler poison steeps the mind — 
" Who enters here, leaves hope behind." 

Her life within these walls ! — in gleams 
It flashes on her like the dreams 
Born of wine-fevered blood, and brings 
A stab of keenest shame ; she wrings 
Her jeweled hands, " Why came you here ?" 
She falters with white lips; and clear 
The answer floats up to her ear : 
"I came to find you and to save." 
"Too late — you find me in my grave. 
Dead to myself, to Greece, to you. 
It is too late to chide or sue, 
Go, leave me to my doom ; the air 
Is full of danger, heed my prayer 
And fly at once; even now some spy 
May mark you with his deadly eye 
A victim for the Sultan's power ; 

" Go." " Not without you. Oh ! my flower. 
The storm has stained, my bird whose breast 
The tiger's claw has torn ; attest, 
Ye listening stars, that rather I 



MYRRHA, THE GREEK BRIDE. 

Would brave the tyrant's rag^e and die 
Than leave her whom I loved in youth, 
Whom still I love through wrong- and ruth, 
Whose stains my lips shall kiss away, 
Whose wrongs my sword with blood shall pay 
When dawns that now impending day 
That whelms the Turk in bloody fray." 

He pleaded, while the light grew pale 

And glimmered on his far-off sail. 

Pleaded till to her eyes there came 

A flash of hope's long-quencbed flame 

Shining albeit through a tear. 

She spoke: '■ At midnight, then, be here, 

And I will come — but oh, I fear 

The most for you. Greece claims your life, 

Let her, not Myrrha, be your wife. 

Unworthy — " " Hush," he cried. "• 'ti': well, 

'Tis promised ; when the midnight bell 

Sounds its first stroke I will be nigh 

To save you or with you to die." 

* * -s ^t -x- 

The night is dark, the moon is new, 
Yet Otho to his trust is true. 
His boat waits by the palace wall, 
His ear has caught a light footfall, 
A murmured word, his heart grows warm, 
His arms upreach to clasp the form 
He sees from out the casement swing. 



70 MYRRHA, THE GREEK BRIDE. 

Why does it's touch a shudder bring ? 

He folds it in a quick embrace, 

His warm lips press the un answering face 

So cold — ! He tears the hood away, 

The form he holds is senseless clay. 

The staring eyes, the parted lips 

Show life has suffered fierce eclipse 

By murderer's hand ; the pearls still deck 

In milky loveliness her neck; 

But what is this— that tighter yet 

Clasps the round throat '? with blood 'tis wet ! 

The fatal bow-string ! Ah, just Heaven I 

He knows by whom her doom was given : 

The despot's spies had seen, had heard ! 

With madness all his soul is stirred ; 

Seizing the rope that lowered the dead, 

He scales the wall ; the turbaned head 

Of mocking watcher cleaves he there 

With his strong arm and saber bare. 

They fly in fear, he follows fast. 

The hall of royal state is passed. 

The Sultan's chamber reached at last ; 

But at its door a hireling horde 

With thickset bayonets guard their lord ; 

And Otho, pierced by many a blade. 

Falls ere his full revenge is stayed — 

Falls in the blood his sword has made. 

And the Bosphorus moans above 
The young Greek soldier and his love. 



FOREVER. 71 



FOREVER. 



We met, it was when laughing Spring 
Her earliest wreath was twining, 

When birds were out on dewy wing, 
And skies were blue and shining. 

I little recked of sunny skies, 

Or April bloom beguiling; 
My sunshine was your radiant eyes, 

My spring your tender smiling. 

I said to Fate: "I will not fear 
Your voice of cruel scorning." 

I said to Memory ;" " Droop not here 
Your raven wing of warning. 

"Some days must be for you and me: 
Some nights all wild and lonely; 

But now, I bid you shadow flee, 
TJiis hour is Love's, Love's only." 

Alas 1 1 heard upon the hill 

Fate's low defiant laughter. 
Ah, felt you not my heart grow still, 

My lips grow cold thereafter? 

I saw and knew it for a sign. 
The breezeless poplar quiver. 

And felt, even with your heart to mine, 
We had met to part forever. 



72 FOREVER. 

Dear love, the saintly sages tell 
A wild and wondrous story, 

That death shall not the spii-it quell, 
Nor quench its fadeless glory. 

I need not these, for in my soul, 
A prophet voice is telling 

That love knows never earthly goal, 
Nor ever earthly knelling. 

Beyond the stars, whose silver feet 
O'er heaven's blue pathway quiver. 

In some fair Aiden we shall meet, 
Who have parted here forever. 



THE UNDYING ONE. 73 



THE UNDYING ONE. 

Cursed with a deathless life, 
Doomed to see centuries go by, 
As clouds across an autumn sky ; 

Through famine, plague and strife 
To pass unscathed — loathing the boon of breath 
And vainly longing for the peace of death. 

Without a hope or aim 
To wander — driven through every land 
By an unseen, remorseless hand ; 

And — horror without name ! — 
To have the groans of pain echo his tread, 
And ghastly Plague waik in his footsteps, dread. 

Upon the battle plain 
Amid the slayers and the slain. 
Through flashing swords and cannon's rain 

To seek for death in vain ; 
The mystic mark, Cain-like, upon his brow. 
Wards off the hand that lays his comrades low. 

Coldly he looks on all 
The pomp and pageantry of earth ; 
The fate of nations and the birth 

Of empires doomed to fall. 
Swept like dead leaves from a wind-shaken limb, 
But what have time and change to do with him ? 



74 THE UNDYING ONE. 

Erect and pale and proud ; 
The beauty of his kingly race 
Throned on his brow of haughty grace : — 

His stately form unbowed ; 
Yet what avails — when Love instinctive flies, 
From the stern sorrow of those changeless eyes ? 

Will it be thus for aye ? 
Oh ! will not God remove his ban 
Of vengeance from this haunted man ? 

Must he endure alway 
This living death ? or will the pitying tomb 
At last be opened for the child of doom ? 

" Tarry until I come " 
On that foretold and longed-for hour 
When the Messiah comes in power, 

And to their long-lost home — 
Their own Jerusalem's ancient, hallowed walls — 
The scattered tribe of princely Judah calls. 

Then, then the curse shall cease ; 
The weary march from shore to shore 
With death and plague shall be no more: 

The prayed-for rest and peace 
Shall settle on those eyes, too sad for tears. 
Dark with the shadows of two thousand years. 



LILLIAN'S PIGEONS. 75 



LILLIAN'S PIGEONS. 

Just where the wood comes down to kiss the meadow 

And fling across its bloom a loving shadow, 

Is Lillian's dove cote, hidden in the beeches. 

In which green fane, Sir Fan Tail sits and preaches, 

All day long the sweet lesson : " Life is love ; 

The world is fair, the skies are blue above. 

The grass seed very good, the brook-water sweet, 

And she, the maid who comes with tripping feet 

To bring our breakfast, she has eyes as blue 

As wind-flowers, flossy curls in hue 

Like the corn tassels when the autumn's new. 

I love to peck her pretty finger tips, 

As pink as apple buds — and then her lips ! 

What, Silver Throat ; you're ruffling neck and wing ! 

Jealous of Lillian, are you ? — foolish thing ! 

She's but a girl ; she cannot fly, or make 

A nest like ours, not for her dear life's sake. 

So pray be sensible. Recollect next week 

You'll hatch a nest full — time to be more meek 

And matronly, J think. She's almost due ; 

It's sunrise. Ah, through clover blooms and dew 

She comes with breakfast ; and I'm hungry, too." 



76 IN ANOTHER STAR. 



IN ANOTHER STAR. 

Sweet eyes, shy woodland eyes, like forest lakes 

Brown-tinged with dropping leaves, I would not stir 

Your pure tranquility if I could. I know 

The breathing roses of those perfect lips 

Are not for me. I know that closely locked 

Is your true heart, and that one holds the key 

Who feels, I trust, the worth of what he guards. 

I shall not whisper through the key-hole — no. 

But is it wrong to dream ? I hope 'tis not ; 

For sometimes when I sit with my cigar 

Wrapping me in its fragrant haze, a dream 

Enfolds me too, and gazing far, far down 

A shadowy vista, stretching past these shores, 

I see your face, like a star, and close beside 

I see my own ; your eyes look into mine, 

Your hands are prisoned in mine ; your lips — 

I'm talking wildly, but remember, dear. 

This happened in some other star, long ere 

We two wer born into this meagre Earth ! 

Some bright, far star, where life was rich and sweet 

And brimmed with beauty. There you were my own. 

I watched each leaf of your white soul unfold, 

Even as we watched the starry sea-flowers blow, 

Sitting, hand clasped in hand, upon the shore 

Of dim mysterious seas. We had no need 

Of speech — no need — ; there was a subtler way 



IN ANOTHER STAR. 77 

For twin souls to commune in that sweet star. 

Oh, those lost hours ! The song-, the light, the bliss 

Transcending Earth's poor joys ! 

"A baseless dream?" 

That may be, sweet ; and yet, I swear, I have seen 

Your soul look at me throug-h those strange, deep eyes 

With a g'leam of recognition — just a gleam. 

As when a flash breaks through Night's rayless arch. 

And shows a world of clouds; thus did that look 

Light up the vista of the past for me. 

You will not grudge the dream ; you have so much 

Such a full cup of love, and I have but 

This dim, sweet memory of that other life 

When you were mine — as you may be again 

When we drift past these shores and find our souls 

In other life-seas. 

A poor shadowy hope 
To feed a sick heart on? I know it is. 
Bat all my life is shadow-like, here alone 
In this old house among the mountain pines. 
Haunted with the ghosts of my dead ancestors, 
Who died ere the warm youth cooled in their blood, 
And lay in state in yonder gloomy room. 
They tell me I am heir to my line's disease, 
That it has seized the citadel of my life. 
And flaunts its red flag on my wasted cheek. 
'Tis well — this life has been a dreary boon; 
I pray the next may be less bitter-bare. 
However undeserved. 'Tis striking one. 
And my cigar is out. Good night, sweet Dream. 



78 CHILD MUSICIANS. 



CHILD MUSICIANS. 

His yellow curls are blowing 

In a tang-le about his brow, 
Weary and footsore and hungry, 

He does not mind it now, 
For under the cottage window 

The mignonnette bloom is sweet; 
Its breath and the dear old music 

Drift his thoughts from the dusty street 
To his home across the ocean, 

On the banks of the murmuring Rhine. 
He plays in a dream of "father-land," 

And his music is half divine. 
He does not heed the clinking 

Of the pennies as they fall. 
It is practical, plump Bettina 

Who stoops and gathers them all. 
Staying her tamborine's tinkle, 

And her lightly dancing feet, ■ 
Till she gathers the scanty manna 

And curtesys, smiling sweet. 
Oh, blue-eyed children of music. 

Wanderers in stranger land. 
May he who cares for the sparrows 

Guide you with tenderest hand. 



ON THE RUINED TOWER. 79 

ON THE RUINED TOWER. 
A PICTURE. 

Alone she stands upon the heights that beetle 

Above the valley steeped in sunset's fire, 
Above the village where her life first opened, 

Dear in each pointed roof and gleaming spire. 
She stands upon the ivied ruins, hoary. 

Of the old haunted tower — her trysting spot 
In days when she had quaffed love's fateful sweetness, 

But not its bitter dregs — to be forgot. 

She looks her last upon her native valley. 

The sadness of farewell in her dark eyes. 
Her steps must turn beyond the mountain shadows; 

New scenes, new hopes shall to her vision rise; 
And work and fame — perchance — shall quench the 
fever 

That love and loss have kindled in her breast. 
And give, what the lone heights, the pines' deep voices 

Have failed to bring her — rest . 



80 THE LONG LEAF PINE. 



THE LONG LEAF PINE. 

The pine, the long leaf pine! 

It seemed a mystic shrine 

In days no longer mine. 
Rooted in sand where the gulf-billows foam, 
Lifting a Doric shaft, a soaring dome. 
In which a spirit sat that ceaselessly 
Seemed uttering wierd prophecies to me. 
As lying at its foot, gazing afar 
Through its green dome at sky, or cloud, or star, 
I heard in its wild strain the voice of Eld, 
Solemn as though some Aztec prophet held 
Mysterious worship in its lofty shrine; 

Dark, spirit-haunted pine! 

What dreams were built in those lost days for me, 

By its wild harpings and the organ sea! 

Dreams grand and sweet to one who knew not life. 

Its sordid worships and its petty strife. 

It seemed so easy to be noble then, 

To win a height by magic of the pen. 

Above Toil's dust and Passion's lion's den. 

Only in books I knew the world of men — 

Old books that lined his room, who was my priest, 

My guide, my prophet. 'Twas my nightly feast, 

Lying on the deep hearth-rug at his feet. 

To read on, on, nor mark the hours how fleet. 

Until he called — oh, voice so deep and sweet! 



THE LONG LEAF PINE. 81 

Only my kinsman? He was more to me! 
My dream of manhood, beautiful and free. 
All things seemed possible to him, whose dower 
Was glorious genius. Could I guess what power 
Had wound its serpent folds about him then 
To drag him down — my eagle among men? 
He of the knightly soul and burning pen. 
And form that seemed the shrine 
Of old-world grandeur, like to thine. 
Oh, sad and stately pine. 

Hush, hush thy song! no more, no more divine 
Its breathings seem; the bead is of? the wine; 
The hours pass — no more with morning shine 
Upon their rosy wings, but chill and slow 
They drift to me like snow. 
When skies hang dim and low. 
They drift like snow, falling on lonely graves, 
The burden of the pine and dark sea waves 

Is now a prayer for rest, 

For weary wing and breast. 

Even in a broken nest. 
Sing not of mysteries, oh! prophet pine; 
My soul has knelt — in vain — at many a shrine 
Has lifted many waters to its lips, 
Thirsting for visions of apocalypse. 

And tasted bitter brine; 
While all the visions that once seemed so bright 
Melted, like mirage, in the later light. 

6 



«2 BLESSING. 



BLESSING. 



"Heaven bless you," he murmured softly, 
"Be happy, sweet friend, good bye; 

And so in the waning summer 
He left me with scarce a sigh. 

"Heaven bless!" Ah I bitter mocking, 
I know what it is to be blessed: 

'Tis to sit all mute in his presence 
By his tender eyes caressed. 

Hearing the waves' low chiming, 

Like bridal bells in a dream; 
Forgetting the past that w^as dreary. 

The future that had no gleam. 

Afloat on the wave of the present, 
Like a leaf on the tossing sea. 

Watching his mouth's sweet smiling, 
Though it never had kiss for me. 

I asked but for his presence, 

A smile, a glance, a word 
Made my heart in its warped life-prison 

Sing like an uncaged bird. 

I craved but these for my blessing, 

I asked not kiss or caress, 
And these — they are raine^no longer; 

What mockery to say, "Heaven bless." 



HENRY W. GRADY. 



HENRY W. GRADY. 



If Death had waited till the grateful Land 
He championed with his life had bent and crowned 

With a proud civic garland of command 
That knig-htly brow with laurels freshly bound! 

But he cared not for crowns — this wrestler strong-; 

If down the arena swept some warm, wild breath 

Of His people's praise — this bore his soul along — 
This came with sweetness in the midst of death. 

Ah! half her sun seems stricken from the South 

Since he is dead — her tropic-hearted one. 
Will the pomegranate flower's vivid mouth 

Open to drink the dews when frost is done? 
Will the gay redbird flash like winged flame, 

The mocking-bird awake her thrilling lyre? 
Will Spring and Song, will Love even seem the same, 

Now he is gone, the spirit whose light and fire 
And pulsing sweetness were like Spring to make 
The old earth young? Will Light and Love awake 
And he still sleep, while we weep for his sake? 



84 THE FISHERMAN'S DAUGHTERS. 



THE FISHERMAN'S DAUGHTERS. 

"Hark! Meeta, how the sea sobs — 
It moans like a dying child ; 
And the gulls fly low and shriek aloud, 
And the sky grows yet more wild. 

"it was still awhile ago, 

And the sea scarce drew its breath ; 
But now I hear afar the roar 
Of the storm that threatens death. 

"And our father is gone in his boat. 
Why would he go out to-day ? 
And why did he gioan and mutter a curse, 
And tear his locks of gray ? 

" Sure he did not curse you, Meeta — 
He always loved you so ; 
He said you'd a look of mother 
In your eyes of star-like glow. 

" You weep, you tremble, my sister — 

You are white as that foam-capped wave, 
Which rolls in first to tell of the flood 
That may be will be our grave. 

" It is not through fear you tremble — 
Your heart is stout, I know. 
When the good ship struck and parted, 
And sunk in the billow's flow, 



THE fisherman's DAUGHTERS. 85 

" You launched the boat with father, 
And you held a steady oar ; 
And you saved the fair-haired stranger 
And broug-ht him with you to shore. 

" The smiling, sweet- voiced stranger — 
He was beautiful as the day, 
But I could not like him, Meeta — 
I was glad when he went away ; 

** For I missed our old walks, sister, 
On the shore with twilight dim ; 
You walked our path of cedars, 
But you went alone with him — 

" Not to the grave of our mother. 
Where we used to go to pray, 
I knelt there sad and lonely, 
And prayed for you every day. 

" At last, in the purple summer, 
The stranger sailed from shore. 
And he kissed your lips and whispered 
He would come back once more. 

"And you waited, watching seaward, 
Day after day in vain. 
With your face so white and anxious ; 
He never came again. 



THE fisherman's DAUGHTERS. 

" You weave your rushen baskets 

All day in the olden place, 

And I see our father watch you, 

With a shadow on his face. 

" And I pray for you in sorrow, 
With a fear I can not speak. 
For your eye grows wild and woful, 
And a pallor blights your cheek. 

" What is it ails you, Meeta, 

That it's so long since you've smiled ? 
Tell your sister, your pet, your baby — 
The Mabel you call your child ; 

"Tell me, and I will pray to Mary — " 
" Hush! — call not that holy name! 
Child, what should you know of sorrow- 
What should you know of shame ? 

" Poor child! by the innocent wonder 
That looks from your wide, blue eyes, 
I know you guess not the burden 
That upon my spirit lies. 

" But pity me, pity me, Mabel, 
lor a storm rules in my heart 
Fiercer than this wild tempest 
Which tosses the boughs apart 



THE fisherman's DAUGHTERS. 87 

"You remember that wild gray morning- 
After the Easter storm, 
When we found in the Rocky Inlet 
A naked human form — 

" A corpse that the waves were tossing 
On the sharp rocks to and fro, 
While the sea mew shrieked above it 
And the cormorant circled slow. 

" Ever thus my soul is chafing 
In a sea of bitter woe, 
And remorse preys on it fiercely. 
And shame swoops on it slow. 

"He knew all, this wretched morning — 
Our father old and gray, 
And madly he faced the tempest 
That was gathering over the bay. 

" The look of his eyes will haunt me 
In the regions of the lost, 
As he stood, his gray locks blowing, 
As pallid as any ghost. 

" Kiss me once, my little sister — 
Pray for my lost soul — pray. 
I am going ; the storm is rising, 
And dark shuts the lid of day. 



88 LOST IN THE CLOUDS. 

"I shall find our father, and bear him 
Over the breakers wild ; 
In his old age one shall cheer him — 
Mabel, his youngest child. 

'* Yonder my boat is rocking 

Through the mists of driving rain ; 
I go to save my father, 

But I shall not come again." 



LOST IN THE CLOUDS. 

" Almost ready," they hear him say, 
The daring rider of air and cloud; 
' Almost ready," he calls to the crowd ; 
' See the monster ! " they cry aloud 

" See her roll ; see her sway. 
She tugs to get free — ah, soon, quite soon 
We shall see her rise — the big balloon." 

With hand on the net of rope 
That is holding his eager sky-ship down 
The aeronaut stands ; from foot to crown 

A being of life and hope. 
He smiles on all— and on one most fair. 
When — a ]er& — a start — up in the air 
Springs the balloon I — and he tangled there ! 



LOST IN THE CLOUDS. 89 

Caught in a coil, swings there, 
Held fast as the monster springs on high — 
He is free ! But to fall would be to die ; 

. So he clings in grim despair 
To the ropes that save him from instant death ; 
No hope of help from the crowd beneath; 
They can only shudder and hold their breath. 

Up through the blue of June 
Cleaving the winds in joyous strife, 
Like a thing of wild defiant life 

Up springs the great balloon. 
Faint come the cries of the crowd below, 
Faint her shriek of frenzied woe, 
Dim grows the earth in its summer glow. 

Up, up, through the pathless air, 
The winds go by with a mocking cry; 
The low sun glares with pitiless eye.. 

His lips can frame no prayer, 
As he clings with quick and laboring breath 
To the only bar between him and death. 

Night — fearful night ! — comes on. 
And the moving clouds take ghost-like forms, 
And hover around in darkening swarms ; 

But higher — and they are gone. 
And the stars look down with cold, pale eyes, 
And silence is wide as the boundless skies. 



90 LOST IN THE CLOUDS. 

'Tis a fearful thing, I ween, 
To float — a wreck — on a stormy sea, 
While the breakers, muttering hoarse on the lea. 

By the lightning's glare are seen ; 
But oh! to be lost in a sea of air, 
With no sound and no living creature there — 
Alone, with a horrible despair I 

Ha! what was that startled scream! 
Just Heaven! is the longed-for earth so near, 
That its blessed sounds may reach his ear ? 

Alas, for the transient dream! 
An eagle with earth-damp wing flaps by 
And turns and looks with a startled cry 
At so strange a sight in the lonely sky. 

Ay ; scream in your fierce despair ; 
Cry to the bird that has swiftly flown, 
Bid him not leave you, to die alone ; 

Then sob out a pitiful prayer. 
For feebly your cold hands keep their clasp— 
'Tis death that is loosening their frenzied grasp. 

* -Se- * :}; # ^ * 

Down, down like a wounded bird, 
Wavers now the shrunk balloon, 
Past is the brief, brief night of June, 
Day dawns, but it brings no hopeful boon. 

And his pulse is scarcely stirred 
At sight of the beautiful earth once more. 
The woods, the lake with its emerald shore. 



love's wish. 91 

For hope and strength are done. 
He looses his hold, with a praj^er for rest ; 
He drops down, down to the lake's blue breast, 

While rises the giaddening sun. 
A splash — that startles the sleeping crane — 
Then the waters close ; it is still again. 



LOVE'S WISH. 

Would I were only a spirit of song; 

I'd float forever around, above you. 
A musical spirit could never do wrong, 

And it would'nt be wrong to love you. 

Would I were only a beautiful dream, 
I'd seek you out, I never could miss you; 

While you slept I would come on a stray moonbeam, 
And — would it be wrong to kiss you? 

Would I were only the soul of a rose — 

That your hand might pluck in the dewy even. 

To breathe myself out where your lips unclose, 
Or your pure heart throbbed were heaven. 



92 A NIGHT WATCH. 



A NIGHT WATCH. 

A.lone with night and silence and tliose strange, 
Wide, yet unseeing, sleepless eyes, whose depths 
I have searched vainly many days and nights 
For some faint gleam of consciousness, some ray 
Of tender recognition to break forth — 
Sudden and starlike from the vacant cloud. 
It does not come. The svv^eet soul that looked forth 
From those deep eyes wanders mysteriously 
In some dim land that borders upon death. 

The roses of the perfect May breathe out 
Their souls of perfume underneath the moon; 
Hid in young leaves the mocking bird, half wakes, 
Utters his passionate dream in song, and sleeps. 
Voice, breath and beauty of the mystic Night! 
And yet they thrill no chord in all my being. 
What is it to me how many roses scent 
The dewy night — since mine lies crushed and pale? 
One broken utterance from these lips whereon 
Cruel paralysis— that death in life — 
Has laid its seal, were worth to me tonight 
The music of the spheres. 

My child, my boy, 
In whose large eyes I dreamed that genius slept, 
For whose broad brow I fondly twined the bays 
That I had ceased to strive for — my fair flower 



A NIGHT WATCH. 93 

That came when life was parched and desert-like, 

And brought the balm of hope; alas ! what dreams 

Of future g-reatness has my fancy built, 

As kneeling- by you sleeping-, I stroked back 

Tne curls from your white temples. 

Well I knew 
My life had failed; the aspiring- hopes that soared 
Too early, had dropped chilled and wounded back, 
Checked by the iron hand of circumstance 
Which fetters woman's life; but you, I said. 
No robes of womanhood could trip your steps 
Upon the mountain paths of fame, my boy, 
You could be free and fearless, you might win 
The goal I could not reach; might boldly speak 
The truths I dared not utter. 

Yes, I dreamed 
Your voice might thrill the great soul of the World; 
Ar.d strong for truth, and brave for truth might lead 
With clarion peal the march of Right, and bid 
Wrong and Oppression tremble on their thrones. 

Ah, me! tonight how vain and wild they seem — 

Those earthly visions, those proud hopes I built 

For you my darling — lying like a flower 

The flames have scathed in passing; wild they seem 

As kneeling so, I hold in mine that hand 

My fancy clothed with manhood's strength and grace, 

Now limp and paralyzed, while the bright mind 



94 THE GOLDEN ROD. 

That was my joy and pride — alas! they say 
It will not look again from these sweet eyes — 
That even if life creeps back, and the fell fiend 
Of fever quits his prey, the kingly Thought 
Will never throne itself on this fair brow. 
But crouch a fettered prisoner in its cell. 

The thought is madness: Better the sweet life 
Beating so wild against its fragile cage 
Should free itself and pass — ah! to what shore? 
To what changed form? The earth-life blotted out- 
The memory of my face — my ciadling arms? 
Vainly I ask — the night, the stars, my Soul, 
Return no answer. I can only trust. 



THE GOLDEN ROD. 

The golden rod is a-bloom; 

The summer will soon be over. 
For this is the yellow plume 

That nods at her bier forever. 

This is the flame alway, 

That burns at her rich cremation, 
Ere autumn's cloud-cup gray 

Pours out on her urn libation . 



THE HOUR WHEN WE SHALL MEET. P6 

The golden rod is a-bloom; 

Our dream will soon be over, 
It will find with the summer its tomb, 

Is it not best so, my lover? 

Born of the Summer's sweet, 

A glowing-, but fitful fever; 
Let it go with her swallows fleet, 

And be Memory no retriever. 



THE HOUR WHEN WE SHALL MEET. 

'•Shall we not meet again?" Even now I see 

Your proud mouth tremble, and I feel your eyes, 
Appealing yet compelling, fixed on me 

Withering my will; I answered then with sighs. 
But I am stronger now; hope is long past, 

And the blue billows of the stormy main 
Roll wide and wild between us. Now, at last, 

My heart gives answer: "We shall meet again." 

Not in an hour, which any tongue of time, 

Brazen or silver, may ring on the air; 
Not when the voice of streams in joyful chime 

Summons young April, shaking from her hair 
Clusters of scented hyacinths, darkly blue 

As your own subtle eyes ; nor when the shade 
Of whispering leaves — of summer-ripened hue — 

Bathes my hot brow in some sequestered glade; 



96 THE HOUR WHEN WE SHALL MEET. 

Nor when the autumn clusters of the vine 

Hang purple in the sun, and the faint breath 
Of languid flowers and sigh of haunted pine 

With plaintive sweetness prophesy of death. 
Nor when I droop my weary head, as now, 

Upon my hand beside the winter hearth, 
Shall your quick step, your kiss upon my brow, 

Make me forget that ever grief had birth. 
No; never more shall sunlight's golden sheen, 

Nor the pale stars — a wierd and watchful train — 
Nor yet the moonlight, chilly and serene, 

Look on the hour when we shall meet again. 

Yet we shall meet. Listen; one winter day, 

Standing where late the jasmines were a-bloom, 
You said, when life's red current ebbed away 

That we should, like the flowers, sink to a tomb 
Of dust and nothingness upon the breast 

Of earth whence we had drawn our sustenance, 
And that the sleep would be eternal rest: 

And then you met my anxious, upturned glance, 
And smiled and said that the mysterious scheme 

Which in the world's dim ages priests had spun 
Of life beyond, was but a dotard's dream; 

And I believed you, for you were the sun 
To my unfolding mind. But that is past. 

I have heard my soul speak in the lone night hours 
And in the silence of the temples vast 

That Nature rears, and when the dreaded power 



THE HOUR WHEN WE SHALL MEET. 97 

Of Death had stamped pale foreheads, I have knelt 
To catch the meaning in the dying eyes; 

And so have solved the mystery. I have felt 
Your teachings false: The spirit never dies. 

There is a life beyond; and we shall meet — 

The thought falls like a dead flower on my heart — 
Meet only once at the dread judgment seat, 

Clasp hands, look in each other's eyes and part. 
And part forever. Oh! by all the years 

My soul has kept your memory enshrined, 
By all my prayers, my bitter, hidden tears. 

The silent love to long despair resigned, 
I charge you let that single look be kind. 

Full of unuttered love — as parting breath 
Breathed out in kisses, when the lips entwined 

Shall soon be severed by the hand of Death. 
The gulf that then shall part us is more deep 

And dark than death. Oh! let that last look be 
One of immortal love that I may keep 

Its sacred memory through eternity. 



HER ANSWER. 



HER ANSWER. 

Have you heard aright! reject you? 

I am pleased to jest to-night? 
No, it is no matter for trifling, 

You have truly heard aright. 
I've refused your offer of marriage. 

Though not, as you say, with scorn. 
I would not repay with sneering 

Any love that was honest born. 
And yours I think is earnest, 

Though so mixed with self-conceit 
You think you honor me, stooping 

As to pluck a flower at your feet. 
Because you have lands and money. 

Earned by your father, dead, 
And I am a penniless maiden 

And work for my daily bread. 

Why have I refused your offer? 

You have a right to know? 
Then I will tell you truly. 

Since you will have it so. 
Could I brook the kiss of betrothal 

From lips that are hot with wine. 
Or swear to honor a manhood 

Enslaved at Bacchante's shrine? 
Yet more; there's a girl (I nursed her 
In an hour of her sorest need). 



HER ANSWER. 99 

Once she was pure — she told me 

Whose hand sowed the evil seed, 
Who cunningly wrought her ruin 

Through her woman's heart that was weak. 
I saw her press to her baby's 

Her blighted and tear-washed cheek. 

And you ask a woman to give you 

Her hand that is clean as a flower! 
You think that for you — and your money — 

She will barter her womanhood's dower! 
I could smile at your vain presumption, 

But that my heart is sad 
When I think of the world's false standards; 

How it kneels to the gilded Bad: 
For I know there are women who study 

Your fancy to catch and please, 
Who smile on your sins in tolerance, 

But I never can be of these . 
They would scourge your fragile victim 

From their midst with fiery rod, 
But I hold that there lies your duty 

And your wife in the sight of God. 



100 LOVE ME LITTLE, LOVE ME LONG. 



LOVE ME LITTLE, LOVE ME LONG. 

My love has ways of tender graciousness, 

And looks that mutely tell me I am dear; 

But she is shy: a delicate, quaint reserve 

Half like a child's half like a queen's still keeps 

My heart at distance, holds me gently back 

When I would melt the snow of her white hands 

With my hot lips, or crush her flower-head 

With all its tendril curls upon my breast. 

I chide her, call her cold, say that she is 

My icicle, my statue carved of snow, 

Which I, unlike Pygmalion, may not warm; 

My tantalus cup of amber, fragrant wine 

Which I must sip, not quaff; then she will smile — 

Playful and yet part sad — and say "Ah Vane, 

You are not happy in your similes; 

The warmed snow-statue would but melt and vex 

You with its gushing, and the cup if quaffed 

Is emptied soon, and likely thrown away. 

I have a different philosophy . ' ' 

"Aye? And what is it? Tell me," 

But she shakes 
Her lovely head and says: "I'll paint it, maybe." 
For she — this love of mine— when she has thoughts 
Too deep or sweet for her shy lips to tell. 
Puts them in graceful, allegoric forms 
Upon her canvass. So, one April day 



LOVE ME LITTLE, LOVE ME LONG. 101 

She drew me to her pretty studio, there 
Placed me before her latest picture, fresh, 
Scarce finished on the easel. A young" maid — 
(I knew the grave, sweet face — a fruit-g'irl, whom 
My Florine petted, taught to read and sing). 
Sat in an alcove, while her white pet dove 
Perched on her arm and fed her smiling lips 
With cherries from a salver heaped with rich. 
Ripe fruit before her. Daintily the bird 
Held one red globule in his silver beak, 
And with it severed the almost redder lips. 

"Charming!" I said. "Thus might a fay at night 
Feed a young rose with drops of magic dew 
To change its snow to crimson." 

"Has it then 
No meaning else?" she asked. "It clasps the sense 
Of my philosophy. The salver holds 
The joys of life; the fair child typifies 
Young Wisdom which refrains from emptying life, 
With eager greed, of all its luscious store; 
And rather chooses that the winged Hours 
Should feed her slowly joy by joy, even though 
The joy were love, the sweetest one of all, 
The saddest to remember when 'tis gone." 

" 'Love little and love long,' " so that's your creed, 
Who taught you such gray wisdom, golden-head?" 



102 IN THE STREET. 

"Love taught me, so I think," she said, "Love sure 

Was the forbidden fruit of knowledge, eaten 

By our first mother. Love makes wondrous wise 

Us women, and we see you prize us most, 

Not when we pour our hearts' wine lavishly 

To crown your feast, but when we hold the cup 

Back from your eager quaffing, suffering you 

To taste, not drain it. So my salver here 

(Touching her breast), holds store of royal grapes 

I fain would crush in one rich draught for you: 

I will be wiser, and like Myrrha's dove. 

Stint the exhaustless store lest you should hold 

The gift too common, as is your man's way." 



IN THE STREET. 

Wild cloud-racks in the sky; a pitiless blast 

Sweeping with freezing power the city's street, 
Where she — fortune's own darling in days past — 

Now treads with little weary, thin-clad feet. 
A sweet, pure face, a slight pathetic form; 

Yet a proud spirit hides beneath the fold 
Of the worn shawl that wraps her from the storm; 

A spirit that would shame me were I bold 
Enough to offer gifts to her to-day. 

And send the sensitive blood to her pale cheek. 
And to her eyes the swift, rebuking ray. 

So proud is she that I — I dare not speak, 



WHITE HYACINTHS. 103 

Or look my love and pity as I pass, 

Seated on silken cushions, with my wheels 
Casting the snow against her skirts: one glance 

She lifts and passes. Ah! she never feels 
How wild I yearn to fold her to my side 

Where sits another, crimson-cheeked and bright, 
But not like her — my sweet, my azure-eyed. 

My bud that chilling poverty will blight. 
While I sit wrapped in luxury. Oh my dove! 

Braving the tempest for your dear ones' sake, 
Would I might shield you with my yearning love, 

And of my arms a nest of shelter make. 



WHITE HYACINTHS. 

Where a tress of her silken hair was looped, 
The bells of the snow-white hyacinth drooped; 
Dewy-sweet in the ball room glare. 
The flower was the one fresh thing that was there. 
I caught its breath in our wild Strauss waltz, 
And whispered: "At least this is not false, 
You are bright as your gems, would you were true 
As your flower yet wet with the twilight dew." 

She loosed her hand and reached for the flower; 
"Take it," she murmured, "and from this hour, 
Let it be a sign of my love for you. 
Hid as the hyacinth hides its dew; 



104 WHITE HYACINTHS. 

Others may praise me as star and gem; 
Cold and glittering I am to them, 
But the hidden heart holds a sweeter dower; 
To you, I am ever the hyacinth flower." 

Springs have flown, and the hyacinths bloom 
Snowy-fair on my darling's tomb. 
Lovely but lonely, queen to the last, 
Like a star, cloud-smitten, my lady passed; 
Starlike they had called her, cold and bright 
As the gems that blaze on the brow of night; 
None guessed the secret we hid so well 
In the fragrant heart of a hyacinth bell. 

She wore to the last her mask of pride, 

And gave me never a token beside: 

Never a kiss from the perfect mouth, 

Sweet as the roses of the South; 

Never a touch of the slender hand. 

White as a shell on the ocean strand: 

But I wronged her never with doubting mood 

Or stress of passion: I understood 

I had seen her heart unveiled in an hour, 

I held its token — a hyacinth flower. 



STIRRING ASHES. 105 



STIRRING ASHES. 



The room was half in shade, the hour was late, 
The fire had nearly died within the grate. 
Sudden, there was a blaze: I turned my head. 

'"Tis letters I am burning*," Margaret said. 

''Letters? — his letters? Oh then, that is well; 
If with them perish too his baleful spell 
And all your love for him." " That love is dead- 
Dead as these ashes that you see me tread." 
She touched the ashes vv^ith her slippered foot, 
When, all at once, I saw a flame up shoot. 
A half-burned fragment in the mass concealed 
Blazed brightly up, and by the glow revealed 
I read the written words: "Thine own till death." 
The flame died down; 'twas over in a breath. 
The room was shadowy and still again 
Until a sound — a stifled moan of pain — 
Escaped from Margaret: her eyes were bent 
Upon the ashen pile, its flame all spent. 
She looked up, met my searching glance and said 
With a pitiful smile: "The ashes were not dead; 

They burned," tapping her silken-slippered toe. 
Ah, poor proud heart! I only said, "I know: 
'Tis dangerous to stir ashes; there may glow 
Some hidden spark or latent flame below." 



106 BREAD AND OIL. 



BREAD AND OIL. 

When the bright year had burst to fullest flower, 
The Plague came, veiled in rosy haze and masked 
In fragrant bloom. Creeping with stealthy step, 
She bound the hapless City with her chain 
Ere it had felt a warning shadow fall 
Across its beauty. 

All unheeded now 
The sunset flamed ; ripe fruits dropped in the grass 
Of the neglected gardens ; Traffic's sounds 
Were silent in the mart ; Death's ghastly trade 
Alone was busy. The dark hearse, the cart 
Freighted with dead, swift rumbled o'er the street. 
" The Dead— how fast they ride !" the idiot shrieked, 
The starving parrot, forgotten in his cage. 
Took up the cry. 

It was Death's carnival. 
The Plague was queen. She stretched her livid arm 
And cried : " I am supreme ; — I and my train — 
Gaunt Famine, Fear and hollow-eyed Despair. 
We have driv'n back all that minister to Man: 
Commerce has furled her sails. Pleasure has dropped 
Her wreath and cymbal, Hope and Love have fled. 
Man is surrendered us to rack and slay.' ' 



BREAD AND OIL. 



101 



Around the stricken city, Fear had drawn 

A cruel danger-line ; beyond it rang 

The wailing cry of " Help !" and lo, there stepped 

Across it, through the poisonous mists, One fair 

As seraphs that trail their snowy wings across 

The bridge of asphodels, which spans the gulf 

'Twixt earth and heaven, to welcome much-tried souls, 

So fair, so grand she seemed— blessed Charity, 
Bringing her message from the outer world, 
Sweet even to the dying. "Ye are not 
Abandoned ; man has not forgotten to feel 
For man his brother. Death has girt you round 
As with a wall of fire, but Love for man— 
Divinest Charity— breaks through and brings 
Succor and soothing, help and sympathy." 

Oh ! noble message , oh ! heroic souls ! 

Bra vers of danger, horror and fatigue 

That would appal the stoutest warrior's heart ; 

And you, who bade your steam-winged vessels seek 

These deadly shores with help— not all were friends- 

Of our own clime ; many the Northern sun 

Had kissed more coldly ; but not cold their hearts ; 

These warm and quick leaped out to meet the cry 

Of the plague-stricken city ; generous hands 

Flashed out with aid as free as rains of heaven 

From scanty stores as from o'erflowing tills. 



08 OUR country's need. 

Are these the hearts we had deemed were cold and 

hard — 
Banned from us by that mist of bloody years 
Which floated still between us ? We had seemed 
Like Ishmael in the desert, faint and worn 
While Isaac ate within the tent and mocked ; 
Not Isaac now ; ye seem the angel sent 
To Ishmael in the dreary wilderness 
With saving bread and oil — bread that has fed 
Our failing strength, and oil of sympathy 
That overflows the cup in which 'twas poured 
And heals a Nation's wound. Blessed bread and oil 
Which Mercy brought, nor dreamed the double good 
She wrought in bringing, for the troubled waves 
Sink to sweet peace, peace chimes in every breast 
And Love has knit a grateful People's heart. 
More closely than would bands of iron laws, 



OUR COUNTRY'S NEED. 

She needs not wealth ; its jeweled crown 
On her proud forehead shines, 

For setting suns look lingering down 
On her exhaustless mines ; 

And sturdy hands draw golden yields, 

From all her countless harvest fields. 



A thousand iron steeds are hers, 
More fleet than hart or hind ; 



OUR COUNTRY'S NEED. 109 

Their tramp the mountain echo stirs, 

Their breath is on the wind ; 
Laden with stores from Labor's hand, 
And treasures from Pacific's strand, 
Her iron slaves rush through the land. 

And Commerce sends her vassals forth — 

Ships winged by steam or sail ; 
Wide on the seas of South and North 

Our flag defies the gale. 
Aye, shore and ocean loudly vaunt 
That wealth is not our country's want. 

And Nature's lavish hand has flung 

Wild beauty o'er the land. 
Her clilTs by forests overhung, 

Her rivers broad and grand. 
Her lone blue lakes and mountains bold 
In song and story have been told. 

Nor needs she genius — in her bowers 

Each muse securely dwells. 
On her fair plains they gather flowers 

And laurels on her hills. 
The world will own our land ere long 
The Attica of wit and song. 

What needs she then, this land of ours. 
So rich in wit and wealth. 



110 OUR country's need. 

With grace and beauty for her dower, 
Hearts strong* in youth and health ? 
Her path winds up to "perfect day," 
What lion crouches in her way '? 

The ship that rides the stormy sea 
When clouds the heavens o'er shade, 

May strong in ropes and timbers be. 
Yet if there be not laid 

A steady hand upon her helm 

The waves will the strong bark o'erwhelm. 

Our Country needs this steady hand 

Upon her ship of State ; 
She needs a spirit to command — 

One wisely good and great ; 
One firm and true, to whom is known 
No interests but his country's own. 



MY BIRTH NIGHT. 



MY BIRTH NIGHT. 



Ill 



Pass silent on, ye Memories ; 
I would not look into your eyes 
For half the stars in yonder skies. 

And you, ye shadowy Years to come, 

Why should I summon you to-night ? 
For Hope stands drooping, wan and dumb 
And Fear sleeps in the fading light. 
What can ye bring to charm or sear 
To wake a thrill or force a tear ? 

My lip has deeply been embued 

In every cup the Fates have brewed 

For souls with feeling's power endued. 

I've drunk the fragrant dew of life 
Ere yet its day-star shone aboon; 
And known the weariness and strife 
Of its tempestuous noon; 
I've tried all feelings on my heart- 
Torn all the rose's leaves apart. 

The mysteries of futurity 

Have come in broken gleams to me. 

Like glimmerings of a far-off sea. 

I've felt the grandeur of the soul 

Beneath the star-filled dome of night, 
A sense of its supernal goal — 
Its upward, its unending flight, 
From worn-out forms its pinions freeing. 
To plume itself for higher being. 



112 IF 

What now remains ? The past has brought 
The gifts of feeling, faith and thought; 
And years with burning life o'er fraught 

Too soon had ripened brain and heart 
Before my brow had lost its youth; 
Oh Years, no more can you impart 
No unknown gift of joy or ruth; 
One boon — one only craves my breast — 
Say — will you bring it ? — only rest. 



IF 

Love, if I were a spirit, a thing from ether bright. 
Invisible as mountain air and free and fair as light. 
Though I should rove through space and find each 

planet's golden girth. 
The air you breathe would be to me the dearest home 

on earth. 
When slumber sealed your snowy lids, I'd hover at 

your side. 
To watch that none but happy dreams should round 

your pillow glide. 
I 'd part with breeze-like touch, the locks upon your 

temples fair 
And whisper Aiden's sweetest words into your spirit's 

ear. 
A bodiless being could not sin, and 'twould not the7i be 

wrong 
To tell the love I dare not breathe except in sighs or song. 



ISABEL. 118 



ISABEL. 

She is beautiful, yes, so an icicle is. 

But who could dream that those calm, proud lips 
Could melt on his in a womanly kiss, 

Or that love could hide in those eyes dark crypts? 
So thought I of queenly Isabel, 

As I watched her glide o'er the ball room floor; 
And the thought was pain, for I loved her well, 

Though I vowed to seek her never more. 

A tender mother had once been mine, 
Her memory still was a sacred shrine, 
And the wife I took to my heart must be 
Gentle and womanly-sweet as she. 
Such could never be Isabel, 
Though in her dark eyes witcheries dwell. 



One day when a storm had swept the land, 

I wandered out in a restless mood. 
And saw the sky with a rainbow spanned, 

And the scattered boughs in the wet, green wood; 
And near fair Isabel's stately hall 

I spied on the ground a broken nest, 
And three young birdlings, featherless all. 

Save for the down on each tiny breast. 



8 



1J4 ISABEL. 

Hovering- together, cold and scared, 

They chirped their griefs in a piteous strain: 
111 no doubt, had the mother fared 

In the storm that blew from the angry main. 
"Poor callow things; some claw or beak,- ] 

Less cruel than hunger will end your woes, ' ' 
I said, as I passed them by to seek 

The shore where the waves in their unrepose 
Still murmured hoarse and broke at my feet 

In sullen foam as I stood there long. 
I turned at last from their gloomy beat 

And their voice that echoed my heart's sad song. 

I strolled back over the storm-lashed ground, 

But stopped transfixed when I neared the spot 
Where the wrecked nest had been strewn around. 

On the chill, damp ground the birds lay not. 
Soft hands had gathered them tenderly; 

Warm fingers cherished each shivering bird. 
Low tones were murmuring pityingly. 

So dove-like sweet that my heart was stirred. 
Wide-open the hungry bird-mouthg flew. 

And she fed them there with a loving art 
Her sweet ©yes full of the pitying dew 

That could only come from a gentle heart. 
Then first I knew she was no Frost-Queen, 

But ahumanVoman, warm and sweet: 
And unchecked by her stately maiden-mein, 

I laid my heart, unspurned, at her feet; 



ARANTH. 115 



ARANTH. 



Sleepless and dreaming-, still my pale Arantli ! 
Your deep eyes, my star-gazer, are tonight 
Dark with, the shadow of that nameless grief — 
The spirit's longing for the un attained — 
Perchance its homesick pining for a past, 
Which lies outside of earth and this, our day. 
The soul, thrown as a shell upon Time's shore, 
Moaning for the lost ocean of its birth — 
The vast sea of the eternal. 

Griefs like these 
Are but as shadows of strange birds that fly 
Over still waters, coming none knows whence — 
A poet's sadness, faint as the far note 
Of those high-flying birds; would that life had 
No deeper sorrow: would your dreams might play 
Only about the brow of hoary Grief! 

For Grief is old; to her Mirth is a child, 

A fluttering leaf upon a mossy tree. 

Grief is as old as earth; the winds have voice 

Only to sigh; the wild rain sobs, the stream 

Utters its plaint, the great sea heaves and moans 

As with the burden of a secret woe 

It would confess, but must not till the end. 



116 ARANTH. 

The strong, convulsive shudderings of Earth, 
When she shakes off her puny tyrant, man, 
Or sucks him down to death with the hot breath 
Drawn through her mumbling lips — these quakes 

of Earth 
Are they not throes of grief for some past cause 
Or terror of some dark, impending doom? 
Once, long ago, I dreamed that Earth was cursed 
In her bright youth for some mysterious sin 
And sent- with her one mate — the pale-faced Moon, 
To wander for long eons through space and bear 
Man's insults, drink his tears and hold his dust. 

Older than Earth is Grief — as old as sin. 

What bright ej-es wept when the Archangel fell. 

What seraph-guardian of a fated star 

Veiled her sad face when the fair world she loved 

Smitten with flaming doom, vanished from space, 

No mortal knows. But these immortal griefs 

Are themes to dream of on calm heights of 

thought. 
Come down from those star-heights, my poet, as 

came 
That princely One from heights above the stars. 
The human heart, the warm, wild, yearning heart 
Holds sadder mysteries than all star-filled space. 



A DARK HOUR. 117 



A DARK HOUR. 



The winter sky is wild tonight; 

The wind — a haunted, homeless thing- 
Goes moaning on its aimless flight, 

While like a dying vulture's wing, 
The sere bough flaps against the pane 

Wet with the chilly winter rain. 

But little reck I that no light 

In yonder shrouded sky appears, 
For were there stars in heaven tonight 

I could not count them for my tears. 
Their moving glories would to me 
But mark how swift the night-hours flee. 
How soon you will be far from me. 



A GRAVEYARD RABBIT. 

When the autumn twilight falls 

And the mufiled screech owl calls 
From his covert in the cedar, dark as night, 

You may see this rabbit sitting 

On a lonely grave, or flitting 
'Mong the glassy mounds, with ghostly noiseless flight. 



118 A GRAVEYARD RABBIT. 

He is wise — this ancient rabbit, 

It has been his wary habit, 
To take refuge 'mong these grave-stones, old and gray, 

Since, when pressed by gun and hound, 

He that friendly crevice found 

In the old wall near the ground, 
And thus balked his keen pursuer of his prey. 

This was in his callow youth. 

He has learned since then the truth; 
Ever danger lurks where pleasures most abound. 

Nibbling grave-yard herbs at ease, 

He contents himself with these, 

Shuns the patch of juicy peas 
Guarded by those dreaded dragons — boy and hound. 

So long has he been found 

Here, on consecrated ground, 
That a sanctity invests this rabbit gray. 

"He's a hant," the darkies say, 

"It would take our luck away. 
To kill him eben for the pot— Thanksgiving day." 

When the moonlit night is still. 

Oft I sit upon this hill 
Where the dead sleep each beneath a grassy roof. 

Just the rabbit, owl and I 

And the winds that faintly sigh. 
While all human sight and sounds are far aloof. 



A GRAVEYARD RABBIT. 119 

Then, if only one lon^ dead 

Should rise from her earthly bed 
As rises a white mist-wreath from the wave, 

She might safely join us here, 

For we would not feel a fear, 

Would not break by word or tear 
The brief midnight spell that held her from her grave. 



C 32 89 .^i 













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